Highway-Capping Fever has Spread to Grant Park (Atlanta, Buckhead: real estate, 2015)

[Airforceguy]

Looks like an interesting idea, it will be interesting to see if this idea gains traction and goes anywhere...

Buildable intown land is at a premium right now, large green spaces are relatively scarce and, generally speaking, parks generate jack in terms of revenue. So what's a city like Atlanta to do? Create linear parks in the airspaces over our plentiful interstates — that's what! For years, we've been calling for some sort of beautified, public-accessible cap to be built over a portion of The Connector. More recently, Buckhead movers-and-shakers have come together to put a bona fide plan into action — one that will seek expert proposals on how to build it next month. And now, from a historic neighborhood that was sliced in two by interstates 50 years ago, comes the newest unfunded but glorious vision. This extraordinarily detailed idea is the brainchild of Rob Smith, a longtime Grant Park resident and real estate agent with a heart for preserving history. Have a gander at Smith's potential game-changing interstate park after the jump, and then demand that your local representatives make all of this stuff happen. Phase I - Build a linear overpass over the section between Hill Street and Grant Street. This would include a structure that would immediately begin to make use of the space: a small, reversable open-air amphitheatre. Local performances and smaller events would utilize the seating in the theatre itself, while larger events would have the stage performance face the green space while seating would be set up on the "mall" facing the stage.

Facilities like maintenance, restrooms and other necessary in-strucure needs would be housed under the amphitheater seating. The east-facing entrance/exit ramps from Hill Street to I-20 would have raised coverings topped with grass, shrubs and trees, and would terminate close to Hill Street itself. The amphitheatre would have an elevated back or elevated topography with trees and shrubs in the back tied in with the inner walls of the raised entrance/exit ramp coverings so as to mitigate any noise from Hill Street as well as the entrance and exit ramps themselves.

Crushed gravel east-west sidewalks under tress would bank the north and south of the mall, all the way down to a reconnection of the current termination points of Grant Street with a traffic-calming roundabout. The roundabout would be surrounded by a semi-structural garden hedge along with a hedge banking the eastern edge of the overpass that would help mitigate the interstate noise from the mall pending the construction of Phase II...

Highway-Capping Fever has Spread to Grant Park - Fund This Now - Curbed Atlanta

[Zanarkand A East]

Sounds good. I wonder what happened to the national mall idea for MLK near the Capitol?

[cqholt]

All these caps are great ideas, but who pays for it?

[Mossberg]

It's always easy to propose projects when dealing in Monopoly money.

Unfortunately, it doesn't spend though.

[jsvh]

I like it.

Originally Posted by cqholt

All these caps are great ideas, but who pays for it?

It should have been done when the highways were originally built. But I think having highway users pay for it now still works too. Seems appropriate to reverse some of the damage done by the highways.

[Hokiehaven]

The Buckhead and Midtown/Downtown Connector ones make more sense financially, real estate prices would rise dramatically, so in that sense, while the cost upfront would be great, it could earn it back in time potentially with a decent sized park in those regions and the improved growth and development around those areas, particularly in Buckhead, where there is a lack of green space right near there.

Too bad, they can't use that hotel taxing plan for capping some of this stuff, to improve the city as a whole too, clear out the highways.

[tikigod311]

Originally Posted by jsvh

It should have been done when the highways were originally built. But I think having highway users pay for it now still works too. Seems appropriate to reverse some of the damage done by the highways.

This logic checks out.

I love the idea. This is another good idea that helps make a great city.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by cqholt

All these caps are great ideas, but who pays for it?

Put another penny on the folks in that neck of the woods.

[Gulch]

Depending on the grade of the freeway, this would likely require demolishing many of the homes immediately adjacent to I-20 and raising the surrounding land to prevent the "berm" effect.

[red92s]

Yeah creating a nice, flat, linear "mall" park like you've got in DC requires a consistent grade along the highway, and matching grades from the north to the south side. It's not like you can just build a flat "ceiling" on I-20 and call it good. I'm guessing there is quite a bit of undulation in the terrain along the route.