Agenda - Parks and Recreation Commission - 09/20/2001

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Parks and the City OFrederick Law Olmsted started it all. Exactly 144 years ago, he became superintendent of New York's Central Park and launched a revolution in park design. By Michael' Barrette lmsted and his partner, Calvert Vaux, created a place where citizens of every social stratum could go to play, experience nature, and escape from the harsh noises and hard pavement of the city. It took an enormous investment of money and land to develop the unprecedented public park. When the park was built, the surround- ing area was unimproved, and most of New York's population lived three miles to the south. In order to fund the improvements, Olmsted and Vaux theorized that the pres- ence of the park would so bolster the land values of surrounding property that the park would essentially pay for itself many times over. They were right. Within 15 years of the beginning of the park project, property values in the surrounding area increased ninefold. lues in the rest of the city doubled over the period. Central Park was such a success that cities all over the country began to follow suit. Parks as a development tool and as a remedy for social ills became a defining ele- ment in the growth of urban America. Atlanta model It worked in Atlanta, says Michael Dobbins, AICP, the city's commissioner of planning, development, and neighborhood conserva- tion. In the early '90s, Dobbins says, "Atlanta was on the ropes. Everywhere you looked you saw signs of disinvestment and disrepair." Things started to change when a massive pub- lic-private effort helped the cityland the 1996 Summer Olympic Games. Centennial Olympic Park was the center- piece of post-Olympic redevelopment efforts in and around the downtown. The site was a 21-acre swath of land west of downtown, between the hotel district and the convention center, the Georgia World Congress Center. The state of Georgia bought the land; the $78 million to build the park came through foun- dation grants, donations, and Olympic spon- sorships. The general public was involved through the purchase of $650,000 worth of commemorative brick& at $35 a brick. The- state maintains the park with the help of rental income from vendors and special events. At first, the business community was ex- tremely skeptical, Dobbins recalls, but no longer. As Central Park did for New York, Centennial Olympic Park has created value for the surrounding land by changing the quality of the urban environment. What was a seedy neighborhood on the west edge o fdowntown Atlanta is today a vital urban center. The park's olSen lawns and formal spaces are filled with people and activi- ties. The park hosts special events that are targeted to attract tourists, downtown work- ers, and families. Children fromAdanta's neigh- borhoods fly kites on the lawns and run through the fountains. Family events and concerts are scheduled on the weekends. And the redevelopment results? Land on the fringe of the park that once sold for $2 a square foot now sells for nearly $200. "The three blocks to the north are all either under development or ready, to start," says Dobbins. "We are looking at between 500 and 600 residential units in that area alone." The area also has added new office and retail space, . hotel rooms, a museum, and restaurants. More construction is on the way, he says. All of this development has had an enor- mous effect on the character of downtown Atlanta. "Before the Olympics, Atlanta did not know what a sidewalk was," says Dob- bins. "It was unusual to see anyone walking from the Georgia World Congress Center to the downtown offices, but now the street is full of people. I'm sure no one comes to Atlanta just to see Centennial Olympic Park, but everyone who does come here knows about the park and takes time to visit it and walk around." Pedestrian activity has been encouraged by the special public interest zoning district that governs the redevelopment area and extends the park's pedestrian environment into the surrounding neighborhood. A recent bond issue dedicated to pedestrian-oriented streetscape improvements received 80 per- cent support from voters. "it is amazing that pedestrian values that weren't on the public's radar screen five years ago have really come to the fore," says Dobbins. Purely passive In parks and recreation parlance, Centennial Olympic Park is a "passive" park because it does not include facilities for "active recre- ation,'' such as tennis courts, soccer fields, or softball diamonds. Rather, it is intended as a 'public green space where city dwellers can escape from the rush of urban life. Although newly built passive parks like Atlanta's are rare, many cities are sh_o~g_