Plans to construct Grant Park Gateway, a $48 million parking structure near Zoo Atlanta, are moving forward.
Winter Johnson Group, a joint venture between Winter Construction and Johnson Construction Services, Monday submitted plans to the City of Atlanta for the 416,000-square-foot project.
Winter Johnson Group was selected by the City of Atlanta to design and build the Grant Park Gateway Project in partnership with Atlanta firm Smith Dalia Architects.
Once complete, the three-story parking deck will offer 1,000 spaces and a 4,000-square-foot restaurant, according to the plans.
A 2.5-acre “green roof” atop the structure will make the deck seemingly become “an extension of the park, nearly invisible from street level.”
In addition to parking for the Zoo, the project will provide additional upgrades to the park including three park areas adjacent to the deck, pedestrian access to the rest of Grant Park, and an upgraded stormwater system.
Grant Park Gateway will be built into the existing landscape with a design “Inspired by the natural foliage of the park and derived from the veins in leaves.”
Some key features of the Grant Park Gateway are:
- A “smart parking system” that guides patrons to available spaces
- Parking areas for both automobiles and bicycles, as well as Electric Vehicle Charging Stations
- Amenities including expanded green space, a restaurant, a bandstand, a shaded terrace plaza, amazing views of downtown, terraced seating, a water feature, and a pedestrian overpass
The project was first announced a year ago by then City of Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed.
[Editor’s note: an earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Grant Park Gateway was a Zoo Atlanta project.]
9 Responses
Sounds great!
Will they improve Boulevard? Traffic on weekends is heavy now.
lol. so, this is how you get folks to NOT drive places and to use public/alternative means of transportation? A PARKING deck?
All this was done without any comment or discussion allowed from the neighbors who live in Grant Park. No one knew just how many old trees would be destroyed in the name of “progress.” The design looks so 1980. I am ashamed of this city for bulldozing this project through. And truth be told the parking deck is only gaining 300 or so parking spaces.
We’ve been needing this for years now!
Not really. The parking study released by the city to validate the need for the parking deck was based on four days of observation. Two weekdays, and two weekend days. It only reached capacity on one weekend day for ~four hours. I’m not sure how you justify a $48m project based on that level of demand.
*That one weekend day at capacity? It was the Saturday of APS spring break (April 2, 2016).
What is that ground parking at the south side of the parking deck? Is that Zoo employee only parking? Is that for the school and charter buses?
Nobody who opposes this project seems willing to admit that this is replacing a *parking lot* and that most of the trees being lost are trees in the parking lot. It’s insane to try to argue that this isn’t a big benefit to the surrounding residential neighborhood. I’d be over the moon if I were getting this new park space and a restaurant where a surface parking lot currently exists.