$300 Million Cap Park Proposed for Downtown Atlanta

Scott Henry reports on the proposal for "the Stitch," a plan "to cap the Downtown Connector by building concrete decking over the top of I-75/85 from the Spring Street flyover southeast to the Piedmont Avenue bridge." 

The proposal is the work of Central Atlanta Progress (CAP), a nonprofit devoted to promoting economic development downtown, and an alliance of neighborhood boosters and downtown landowners. So far CAP has spent "close to $100,000 to commission the 114-page study from the Atlanta office of Jacobs, a global engineering company based in Pasadena" and is currently seeking another $1 million for preliminary engineering work. In total, the project is expected to cost about $300 million—a figure calculated based on the cost of Klyde Warren Park in Dallas.

If built, the Stitch will also owe a spiritual debt to Klyde Warren Park.

Although the name is new, the idea behind the Stitch has been around for years, appearing in previous planning documents and maps published by CAP. But the striking success of Klyde Warren Park has helped spur interest in highway-capping projects in cities around the country. 

The hope for the Stitch is for it to it "bring about a fresh renaissance in Atlanta’s urban core and finally erase the half-century-old barrier between downtown and Midtown," according to Henry. The article includes lots of renderings of the conceptual plan for the cap park.