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Officials: Beltline Link To O4W Park Should Open This Summer

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Officials hope the path connecting the Historic Fourth Ward Park to the Beltline's Eastside Trail will be completed by the end of the summer, and they're throwing around some fairly impressive numbers regarding the trail's economic impact. Mayor Kasim Reed will lead a groundbreaking Friday morning for the Eastside Trail Gateway, a project destined to stretch (rather phallically, if we're being honest) from the Beltline's Angier Springs Road access point to Dallas Street. The goal is obviously to create a direct route from the two-mile paved portion of the Eastside Trail to hopping Historic Fourth Ward Park (and vice-versa), but the three-fourths of an acre next to the Masquerade will basically form its own pseudo-park as well. Officials promise pleasant landscaping, lighting, retention walls and "green stormwater infrastructure" along the winding path.

Funding for the Gateway was secured via private donations and grant money from the Woodruff Foundation, and the land was obtained about a year ago from the Trust for Public Land. The connection is something Beltline CEO Paul Morris said residents have clamored for "since we opened the Eastside Trail," and Mayor Reed called it a link between "two projects that have had tremendous impact on the surrounding area." Reed also said in a news release that "1,000 new housing units (are) under construction in the immediate vicinity," echoing a number Curbed came up with a few weeks ago, by way of complex math. Hizzoner estimated new private development within half a mile of the Eastside Trail at $775 million.

— By Curbed Atlanta contributor Tyler Estep

· Historic 4th Ward Park: Atlanta's New Apartment Mecca [Curbed Atlanta]
· Coming Soon: Beltline Link to Historic 4th Ward Park [Curbed Atlanta]