Atlanta has a strategic opportunity to embrace Downtown revitalization efforts by fueling new and improved transit service. In conversations with about a dozen business and civic leaders, it has become obvious that our city is at a pivotal juncture when it comes to Downtown and transit. First, stars are aligned to bring new life to […]
Tag: Ryan Gravel
Posted inLatest News
Legendary planner Tim Keane is moving back home to Charleston
Atlanta’s former planning commissioner – Tim Keane – has been named head of Charleston’s planning, permitting and engineering. He will start the position in the beginning of June.
Posted inColumns, Maria's Metro
Celebrating MARTA’s vote to advance the Streetcar along the BeltLine
At long last! The MARTA board voted to advance the eastern extension of the Atlanta Streetcar to Ponce City Market at its meeting on April 13 – a move that was significant on multiple levels.
Posted inColumns, Maria's Metro
Seeking peaceful green solutions for training center in South River Forest
The controversy over building a public safety training center on the site of the old Atlanta Prison Farm continues to fester.
Posted inColumns, John Ruch
Is Streetcar extension just the start of BeltLine rail, or also its end?
The Atlanta Streetcar extension onto the Eastside Atlanta BeltLine is moving toward a final design phase with no clear answer to its oldest question: What the heck is this transit service for, exactly?
Posted inColumns, Maria's Metro
South River Forest civic engagement work can help bridge divide
The Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) and the Nature Conservancy publicly kicked off its South River Forest Community Engagement process at a meeting Saturday morning at DeKalb County’s impressive Sugar Creek Golf & Tennis Center off Bouldercrest Road.
Posted inColumns
Inside Lake Charlotte, the City’s new nature preserve
By John Ruch With butterflies, deer, mysterious stone walls and many, many trees, Southeast Atlanta’s newly opened Lake Charlotte Nature Preserve is already a gem of the city. And that’s just a soft-opening start. There are years of work to come to clear out invasive species for the forest’s health and to plan some rustic […]
Posted inJohn Ruch
‘Atlanta City Design’ book goes on sale in handsome, hefty print form; author discussion coming
Update: The Sept. 16 discussion has been postponed due to weather, with a new date to be announced. Four years after the City’s digital release of a book laying out a long-term vision for Atlanta’s urban planning, a handsome hard-copy version is now available at a bookstore and a discussion with its authors is coming […]
Posted inColumns
Atlanta City Council asked to vote on public safety center despite unknowns
So many unanswered questions.
In light of mounting opposition to its initial proposal, the Atlanta Police Foundation hastily presented an alternative plan at last Wednesday’s finance committee meeting of the Atlanta City Council for a new public safety training center on the site of the historic Prison Farm property in DeKalb County.
Posted inColumns
South River Forest: A big green dream starts coming true
A lovely June morning was the perfect time for a nature hike in southeast Atlanta, but the starting point was a bit of a surprise. A small group traversed the tire-doughnut scars in the parking lot of the Value Village shopping center at Moreland and Custer avenues, parked behind its graffiti-covered loading docks, passed through […]
Posted inLatest News
Breaking news: Plans to redevelop West End Mall in jeopardy
The visionary proposal for the $400 million redevelopment of historic West End Mall has hit a major stumbling block.
Posted inColumns
Along the South River, large tracts of tree canopy under siege
By Guest Columnist RYAN GRAVEL, AICP, founder of Sixpitch, Inc.
The latest tale in the slow destruction of Atlanta’s iconic tree canopy might seem like a bizarre aberration. When you see it in context of generational disinvestment in the South River watershed, however, suddenly it’s not so surprising. As it turns out, this tale is not an anomaly, but if you look closely, an elegant and aspirational solution to the larger narrative is hiding in plain sight.
Posted inColumns, Main Slider
Nipsey Hussle, new developers Ryan Gravel, Donray Von and transforming The Mall West End
By King Williams “When we speak of place-making, we assume that the place being made was devoid of life, culture and context. Place-making indicates that nothing exists. It is inherently colonialist. Place-keeping uplifts an area’s culture, provides resources and enriches.” – Miranda Kyle, Atlanta Beltline Arts and Culture Program Manager On the afternoon of Sunday, […]
Posted inColumns
Atlanta’s ‘Riverwalk’ along the Chattahoochee gets major boost
A vision to create a Chattahoochee River trail within the City of Atlanta is one big step closer to reality.
Invest Atlanta, at its meeting on Aug. 29, voted to approve a pivotal land swap between the city and the development group of Chattahoochee Trails LLC and Kovach Development.
Posted inMain Slider
BeltLine boosters to MARTA: rail, now
As MARTA ponders how to spend a new Atlanta sales tax worth $2.5 billion over 40 years, BeltLine rail advocates say a ring of rail belongs at the top of the priority list.
Posted inUncategorized
Parks + the Resilient City Revisited
By Michael Halicki, Park Pride’s Executive Director Disruptive events – both man-made and natural – have become the norm. We need only look at the last year in Atlanta to know this is true: heat waves, snowstorms, floods, hurricanes, water main breaks, an interstate collapse, traffic gridlock, and most recently, a cyber-security meltdown. It is […]
Posted inColumns
Group seeking to find – and restore – the Flint River near the airport
Atlanta’s largest mass of concrete – Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport – sits on top of the headwaters of the Flint River.
In looking over the acres and acres of concrete, it’s hard to envision streams and rivers that used to run through what once were working-class neighborhoods with 1950s-style homes lined with mature trees.
But Hannah Palmer and Ryan Gravel have done just that.
Posted inColumns
Atlanta City Design 2017: A grand vision for people, nature and people in nature
In a City Hall conference room, Atlanta Planning Commissioner Tim Keane gently unrolled a mega-watercolor that Christian Sottile, an urban designer from Savannah, had painted of the new Atlanta City Design.
The watercolor captured the significance of the design process and its potential for Atlanta by using a graphic style that dates back to the early 1900s – depicting a desire fort this design tol become part of city’s landscape and identity for decades to come.
Posted inLatest News
Can the BeltLine save Atlanta? Panel discussion to explore its past, present, future
Four men with considerable perspectives on the Atlanta BeltLine are to convene Aug. 31 at the Atlanta History Center for what could be a wide-ranging discussion on the nation’s largest urban renewal project. Panelists include two original BeltLine visionaries and a scholarly author, and a moderator who once oversaw a non-profit that propelled the BeltLine concept and secured $40 million worth of land for it.
