Plans stall for Midtown highway-capping project

Caption

An illustration of the connector park in Midtown between North Avenue, at left, and 5th Street. The silver oval at 5th Street is of the proposed performance venue.

Credit: Image courtesy Atlanta Connector Park

Work by a private foundation to build a highway-capping park to reconnect the east and west sides of Midtown has stalled. 

The future of the park remains uncertain without significant financial backing by a local or state government agency that handles policy, funding and infrastructure decisions for transportation. 

Doug Hooker, CEO of the Connector Park Foundation (formerly the Midtown Connector Foundation) said in a written statement to Rough Draft that because the proposed park would be built over I-75/85, it must be constructed and owned by a public entity.

“With a number of exciting infrastructure projects happening in the region and across the state, there is currently no public partner with the capacity for this project, so we must bring this chapter of its planning to a close and suspend our work at this time,” he said. 

The Connector Park Foundation was established by Chick-fil-A’s chairperson Dan Cathy in 2018. Cathy’s vision was to create a public-private partnership to build the approximately 12-acre park over the Downtown Connector between North Avenue and 5th Street, linking Georgia Tech’s main campus to Tech Square.

Cathy’s decision to suspend work on the Atlanta Connector Park once known as the Midtown Connector Park, was first reported by the Atlanta Business Chronicle.

Last January, the project received an earmark of $3.2 million in federal funding for planning and engineering. A month later, it was announced the park project was being scaled back to almost half its original size and Hooker was named head of the foundation.

Shrinking the project from 25 acres to about 12 acres brought down its estimated cost from between $800 million to $1.2 billion to between $600 million to $800 million.

“Because of passionate efforts of the small and talented ACP team, there is a clear blueprint for a future public-private partnership to bring this transformational project to life, should future leaders desire to do so,” Hooker said.

Kevin Green, president and CEO of the Midtown Alliance, told Rough Draf in a written statement that Atlanta is a city that encourages big ideas.

“[A]nd this project is a testament to that spirit. We recognize the substantial work that has been put into advancing Atlanta’s Connector Park, Dan Cathy’s unwavering vision and generosity, and the creativity of the professionals who have put in so much effort,” he said. 

“As our city continues to foster unity and bridge communities, our hope is that projects like these are a question of ‘when’ — not ‘if.'”

This story comes to GPB through a reporting partnership with Rough Draft Atlanta.