The Stitch Vision Study

We worked with the Atlanta Downtown Improvement District and Central Atlanta Progress to prepare a vision plan for thirty blighted acres of urban land in Downtown Atlanta, Georgia. The project and site area are centered upon the main transportation artery in Atlanta, the region, and the state – Atlanta’s Downtown I-85/75 Connector. For over fifty years, the Connector has created a decidedly negative effect on the physical urban fabric and socioeconomics of Atlanta’s Downtown neighborhoods.

Our vision is to create a fifteen-acre deck park over the interstate to unlock economic development in the district leading to the re-establishment of a walkable, world-class destination leveraging a direct connection to Downtown and Midtown Atlanta. Through the creation of air rights development and adjacent redevelopment supported by the park, the disruptive patterns of the highway will be replaced by a new urban neighborhood. The neighborhood and deck park will form a new front door for Downtown and make a stronger connection to the Civic Center Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) station. The historically underutilized MARTA station is envisioned to be expanded into a multi-modal station for regional and local buses.

Representing potentially billions of dollars in development, this new front door to Downtown will become a catalyst for stitching the Midtown and Downtown cores together. This urban stitching will create, in essence, a unified central business district for the City of Atlanta.