Park Visioning

Design consultations are available to all registered Friends of Park groups in the City of Atlanta.

Design consultations are one-on-one meetings with our park visioning staff that happen on-site at your park. Meetings typically last one hour. Consultations may result in a written summary of the conversation intended to help identify the next steps for a park project.

Friends of Park groups interested in receiving a design consultation can email teri@parkpride.org with information on your proposed project.  

Design Consultation Request Form

Park vision plans are available to registered Friends of Park groups in the City of Atlanta and Friends groups must:

• commit to six to eight months of public planning work,
• support an open and inclusive visioning process that intentionally represents differing opinions and diverse viewpoints,
• and be open to considering all ideas regardless of popularity, site control or budget.

Our park visioning process hinges on a robust, inclusive public engagement strategy, which is tailored to each community and is most successful when participants are open to various outcomes.

While every park visioning is unique, each community undergoing park visioning can expect:

• Monthly meetings – The scheduling of monthly meetings of a community steering committee with Park Pride’s visioning team over the 6-8 month process to inform the understanding of the community’s needs. The steering committee will help to develop and implement the public engagement strategy as well as participate in design discussions and decisions at monthly meetings. Committee members should represent a broad and diverse spectrum of community interests.
• Public input meetings – A series of public input meetings during which people are encouraged to dream big and think outside the box for what might be possible in their neighborhood park and form consensus around the priority projects they have for the design (or re-design) of their park.
• A final, conceptual park plan – The central deliverable of the Park Visioning Program is the creation of a conceptual park master plan that includes:
  • an investigation of the history and neighborhood context around the park,
  • a catalog of existing conditions in the park,
  • a summary of the process including public engagement strategies,
  • documentation of how decisions were made,
  • a visual representation of the conceptual park plan,
  • a prioritized project list, as well as the graphics and site plans necessary to help the community bring their dream park to reality,
  • an itemized opinion of probable costs.

Communities interested in receiving park visioning services must apply, and the application pool is highly competitive.

Click your jurisdiction below to begin the Park Visioning application process:

City of Atlanta

All projects must meet the prerequisites below to be considered for the Project Design Accelerator. 

• Must be a registered Friends of Park Group for the current cycle 

• Park must be owned and maintained by the City of Atlanta 

• A specific project within the park that can be developed into a concept 

• A strategy to collect feedback on the concept

After your application has been accepted you will be matched with a local design partner. From there you can expect the process to go as follows: 

• The volunteer design team will reach out to schedule an initial site visit with the Friends group. A Visioning Team member will also be present at this meeting to answer any program-specific questions. 

• The program will roughly follow this schedule: 

• • Day 1: Initial onsite meeting with the volunteer design team 

• • Day 30: First Required Check-in with Park Pride 

• • Day 60: Second Check-in with Park Pride 

• • Day 90: Program Completion 

• During the initial meeting, a scope of work will be agreed upon. The volunteer design team will then have 90 days to develop your project into a concept. 

• Except for two check-ins described below, additional design meetings within those 90 days are at the discretion of the volunteer design team and Friends of Park group.  

• A minimum of two check-in meetings with Park Pride’s Visioning Team will be required. During those meetings, we will go over your community engagement strategy and next steps for your project.

• You can expect to receive a conceptual plan from your volunteer design team that can be used to gain approval from your park’s governing jurisdiction, i.e., the Office of Park Design for the City of Atlanta.  

• Projects from the Park Design Accelerator are not automatically funded, and your jurisdiction’s parks department will have final approval. 

• At the end of that year’s cycles, participating Friends groups and volunteer designers will be invited to a Park Pride social event. Event details will vary per year. 

To see if your project fits the Project Design Accelerator, schedule a consultation with us using the Park Design Consultation tab. Qualified candidates will then be invited to complete an application for admission into the program.