This Park Pride success story is a long time in the making, which makes it that much sweeter! We have to go back to 2005 where this story begins . . .
2005: The Vine City community approached Park Pride to help revitalize the two acre plot of land that was overrun by kudzu and occupied by several abandoned houses.
2006: The Park Pride Visioning team (Walt Ray and Becky Katz) organized community meetings and designed (with consensus!) a neighborhood park complete with a children’s playground, seating and grilling areas, lawns and several new trees.
2007: The first phase of the park was constructed with the help of $1.9 million dollars in funding from the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, Westside TAD funding from Invest Atlanta, and the Department of Watershed Management.
2008: The park was officially recognized as Vine City Park by The City Parks Department!
The park was beautiful! And the community expressed an interest in making the park even bigger, but there was just one hurdle standing between them and that wish: this large and empty apartment building.
2012: For 4 years, the Vine City community and its supporters pushed to acquire this property that was immediately adjacent to the park with the hopes of removing the building and extending the park. At the end of 2012, the property was successfully purchased and Phase II planning of the project officially began which will increase the total size of the park by 25%!
2013: Under the management of Park Pride, a permit for the apartment building’s destruction was approved on July 25th, and the demolition occurred just four days later.
Several members of the community turned out to witness the demolition that they had awaited for close to five years.
“This is a big win for Vine City Park,” says Walt Ray, the Director of Visioning at Park Pride. “This community is excited and ready to take the next steps to really build out the green space that can be used by everyone.” Park Pride will organize a series of community workshops to discuss and plan the park’s future expansion that is projected to be completed by October 2013.
We’d like to thank the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, Invest Atlanta, the Department of Watershed Management and several other supporters for helping Park Pride and the Vine City Park community make this park a reality!
Stay tuned for Vine City Park updates!
Congratulations to all involved for this success in an area where Atlanta needs more parks.
This is great news! I am happy to have been a part of this project and look forward to the complete park.