We believe parks and open space are essential to a world-class urban experience.
Parks and plazas anchor community life, fostering recreation and human connection. These shared spaces that incorporate nature have been shown to decrease stress and improve well-being. And in Midtown’s fast-growing commercial core – where 100K residents, daytime workers and visitors spend time each day – we need more publicly accessible open space.
Midtown Alliance’s staff and leadership are working together to act on strategies for building a comprehensive green infrastructure network. We envision an interconnected system of open space that:
- encompasses a variety of sizes and uses
- ensures everyone is within walking distance of great spaces
- catalyzes new development and a vibrant ground-level retail
- provides a platform for public art and programming, celebrating Midtown’s legacy as an arts and cultural district
Read our open space strategic plan.
Leveraging creative partnerships from large-scale park projects to small concrete plaza retrofits.
This strategic vision includes grand ideas, such as the Midtown Art Walk, which will connect the district with a ribbon of linear green space designed to feature a collection of world-class public art. Adjacent property owners on the corridor are instrumental to this project, which truly reflects our role as intermediary between private-sector and community interests.
Our work also focuses on populating the street grid with smaller parks and plazas by sharing our expertise with property owners to repurpose underperforming spaces and by using public right of way, such as on-street parking spaces, as places for people. We’ve collaborated with MARTA and developers to reimagine underutilized, concrete transit station plazas and empty lots as vibrant destinations.
Colorful mural art by Andrew Catanese with a Southern Gothic twist and astro-mounds create the feeling of a lush, verdant landscape at the Midtown Station south plaza
We maintain and program 10th Street Park, a half-acre active temporary park space, through a special partnership with landowner Dewberry Capital
Creative programming and temporary additions at the Arts Center Station east plaza include colorful window treatments, seating and a piano
What was once a space overgrown with vegetation along the Arts Center Station west frontage now features a dynamic mural by Stacie U. Rose, seating and landscaping
Midtown Alliance worked with the City of Atlanta and corporate supporters to restore the historic World War I monument at Pershing Point Park
Midtown Alliance partners with MARTA’s Artbound initiative to provide 280 hours of musical performances annually at stations in the district
18th Street Park, a former temporary park created in partnership with Jamestown Properties was redeveloped in 2016
95% of respondents to our 2019 Midtown Community Survey indicated they want to see more permanent smaller parks and plazas beyond Piedmont Park
Sometimes, changing a street or intersection can open up new plaza space.
Street realignments have not only resulted in safer conditions for pedestrians and motorists, but have also netted attractive recreational space for people to enjoy. Ponce Triangle and 15th Street Plaza are examples where improvements to Midtown’s street grid also benefited the district with new, multi-use public space.
Historic trolley tracks lie beneath Ponce Triangle, which was at one time a “slip lane” from Peachtree Street eastbound on Ponce de Leon Avenue.
Construction will begin soon at Peachtree Place and Peachtree Street to realign the intersection and provide outdoor dining and other amenities
A new project on Spring Street creates the opportunity to turn parking spaces made obsolete by a new barrier-separated bike lane into parklets outside stores