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With HUB404’s logistical groundwork underway, leadership’s goal is to open full half-mile by 2025
An immersive “virtual reality” video unveiled at a pivotal meeting this week for Buckhead’s grandest green space idea shows the HUB404 park vision as less a full cap of Ga. Highway 400 than a series of swooping, accessible spaces braided above it.
It’s being called a one-of-a-kind, urban “crown jewel.” The first transit-oriented park in the country. And a community-connecting resource that’s feasible to engineer and build within about five years.
Leadership group HUB404 Conservancy officially kicked off its efforts toward fundraising and generating public support at a Tuesday evening launch party on a high floor of the Atlanta Financial Center, overlooking the highway gash where the park—official name: HUB404 Atlanta GA—would be built.
Totaling nine acres of green space that links with MARTA’s Buckhead Station, HUB404 would span about a half-mile between Peachtree and Lenox roads. Despite ballpark cost estimates that have previously exceeded $200 million, HUB404 board leaders sound confident that making the park a realty by 2025 is going to happen.
The more open concept—with sections exposing highway lanes below, as previous renderings have shown—is meant to curtail costs.
The past six months have seen key foundational work completed that should accelerate progress going forward, including the formation of HUB404 Conservancy, the refinement of project branding, and the tweaking of specific project parameters, said Jay Gould, Interface CEO and the conservancy’s board chair.
“We’re now moving quickly to raise funds for the next phase of engineering and design work needed to begin actual construction,” Gould said, in a prepared statement.
Here’s a revised timeline provided by the conservancy this week:
- 2019—2020: Fundraising for engineering and design work, as well as initial fundraising for eventual development and construction of the park;
- 2020—2021: Completion of engineering, design and environmental planning work. Continued fundraising for the park’s development and construction;
- 2022—2023: “Ground-making” construction begins. (Creating green and public space above the highway, that is, as there’s no ground to break there, so to speak);
- 2024—2025: Complete construction. Ribbon-cutting and grand opening in 2025. Initiation of public programming in partnership with other key, diverse Atlanta organizations.
The Buckhead CID, aided by a $600,000 Georgia Transportation Infrastructure Bank grant, has gathered data related to the complex business of property boundaries, utilities, and topography. Also studied is information about underground conditions that was collected during construction of the highway and MARTA.
Buckhead CID executive director Jim Durrett, a project spearhead for years, stressed that the space is meant to help people connect with nature in a urban environment, whether it be a picnic in shaded groves, immersive walks through trees, or social gatherings in a planned, grand plaza.
Below are a few highlights from the new video that show the latest HUB404 design features, followed by a YouTube portal to the video itself.
Full Article & Images: https://atlanta.curbed.com/2019/10/31/20940718/hub404-buckhead-atlanta-highway-park-marta-georgia400