Residents and business owners from Summerhill, Pittsburgh, Peoplestown and Mechanicsville met with designers at the Braves Fanplex to discuss the future of the neighborhood. Despite the commitment of Georgia State University to a $300 million development, their collective outlook isn't exactly rosy.
The design firm Perkins + Will hosted the second public meeting for the Livable Centers Initiative study that will provide resident's recommendations for the Turner Field neighborhoods. People in the area have plenty of ideas when it comes to making improvements. Neighborhoods are cut off from each other because of highway and stadium development, the neighborhoods have a flooding problem and entrenched poverty has led to increased crime. Fixing or managing those issues would be a major coup for residents and make the area more attractive to new businesses.
Georgia State, for its part, plans to convert Turner Field into a football stadium and use the site of the former Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, which is currently a parking lot, for a new baseball stadium. They also plan to infill the area with student housing, senior living areas, market-rate apartments and retail. While residents welcome the redevelopment of what have been mostly empty parking lots for over a decade, they still haven't received a clear signal of whether essential neighborhood services — like a grocery store and banks and laundromats — will come along for the ride.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Perkins + Will designers have said that with the influx of students, new residents and an increase in neighborhood incomes, those businesses will follow. But residents were quick to point out they were told the same thing before the Olympics in 1996. Plus, with the economic stimulus of new development, there's the very real possibility that current residents won't be able to take advantage of positive changes as they are priced out of their own neighborhood.
· Residents share vision for neighborhoods near Turner Field [AJC]
· Georgia State President: Turner Field Work To Run Smoothly [Curbed]
· Turner Field Survey Shows Residents Aren't Asking For Much [Curbed]
·Turner Field Will be Sold to Georgia State University & Carter [Curbed]
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