July 24, 2020

By Maggie Lee

The Freedom Park Conservancy wants Atlanta's opinion in the first major update of the park's master in about a generation.

But people are using parks differently than they were when Freedom Park's first phase opened as a trail along Freedom Parkway.  And COVID-19 has only made a rethink of green spaces more important, say some of the current and past leaders of the Freedom Park Conservancy.

And even they who love it the most admit Freedom Park has its design challenges: its odd X-shape, the roads cutting through it, compacted ground and the lack of a marquee entrance.

SaportaReport interviewed three folks involved with the Conservancy about why Freedom Park's upcoming master planning  is important and what kind of public involvement to expect..

A condensed version of this interview is at https://saportareport.com/freedom-park-asking-for-advice-on-the-next-evolution-for-200-atlanta-acres

To keep in touch with the Freedom Park Conservancy, check Freedompark.org, where you'll also find links to social media.

SaportaReport: Y'all are going to get a master plan done. Why do you need that? What what kind of questions are you trying to answer?

Stephanie Wolfgang: The original plan for the park was done kind of at the height of the Olympics planning for Atlanta. It wasn't implemented in some ways completely and since then there's been very little change in the park and little additional thought and planning put into it aside from some art pieces. 

And so the idea is to think about: 'How has the park changed since that original plan was put forth, and in what ways can the park better serve the communities now?' 

The communities around the park are much different than they were even then. So it's really about getting the opinions of all of our neighbors and the city at large, to see what do they want this park to be. And then we'll use that master plan to implement that moving forward for maybe the next 25 years.

SaportaReport:The Olympics, you're talking about before even the BeltLine was cutting right through your park. 

David Hamilton: ... The city itself, the neighborhoods, and even the idea of what a park is or should be — that has all changed a lot in 25 years or so.  I think the park, to Stephanie's point, the park was never ... It was planned in a somewhat minimal way but it was all hurried for the Olympics. They wanted to get it in place for the Olympics. And they used the money they had, so a lot of things never were completely finished. There are some rough edges to the park as well. 

SaportaReport: Why is now the time to do it? Does it have anything to do with COVID-19 or just being a long time after the Olympics? Is there anything sort of pressing at the moment?

David Hamilton: I think that's actually a really good question. And some of it, honestly, it is because we have been thinking about this for a number of years, and we finally raised the funds to do it. But I think actually more importantly, and maybe somewhat by a coincidence, I think now is a really good time to reevaluate the worth, and the place of public space and parks. Because of COVID, because of where we are as a city, those things are becoming increasingly important. Pedestrianism is becoming more important, having green space is becoming more important. And certainly we think about it differently now that we've gone through, and after the COVID-19 crisis. 

When the firms were interviewing, actually, that was one of the points that the most of the people that interviewed with us made: is that now is a really good time to rethink what a park is, about public spaces and how we relate to each other. Because of this crisis, it's made us think about that and it's made us use those kinds of spaces a lot more. People that were stuck inside of their houses for months are using the parks in a different kind of way. 

So, yeah, I think this is actually an ideal kind of time. That would be the more complicated answer.

Stephanie Wolfgang: We actually finalized our RFP that went out to design consultants last year, so it was going to happen this year regardless. But as David was noting, the major park systems that we know of now, like Central Park in New York, actually came in response to pandemics. That one, for, I think it was the plague at that point!! [laughs]

So parks have always helped serve that purpose and like David's saying, now it's even more important. People want to be able to touch base with their friends and they can do it safely outside. So we think the park will be more and more used in times like this.

David Hamilton: In the broader sense, Atlanta is becoming more conscious of itself as a city, an urban place. Maybe all cities are ...Those urban places, the parks and spaces are becoming more important to who we are. So, this is a really good time to look at this.

SaportaReport: What are the outcomes of a master plan? Is it going to be like a new map or new amenities or a new map of more art? Things like that, what are the deliverables. the outcomes of a master plan?

Stephanie Wolfgang: There will be some very concrete outcomes. There will be a new plan, kind of like what you're referencing: a map, a physical plan, an aerial view showing some proposed improvements and future projects. We'll also see some kind of renderings, prospective 3D views, giving the idea, a feeling of some of those future spaces. 

And then there's sort of a category that that we're not sure yet, that will probably evolve as the master plan process evolves. It might take the direction of some type of art curatorial plan. But it also may not. It depends on what stakeholders find the most important. 

And the most important thing for the Conservancy is that it frames up the series of projects that then we can fundraise towards and act on in the future. So it will include cost estimates, so that we can really roll that into planning with the Conservancy itself but also the [city] parks and rec department.

You want the public to be involved in this — How can the public get involved. What should people be looking for in terms of engagement?

Harriett Lane: The Freedom Park Conservancy's core identity is rooted in civic activism, so we place a high value on community engagement and honoring the historical, natural and cultural assets of the park. We think it's really important for public participation. We have a whole line of tools, the design firm has a whole line of tools, that we can choose from. So it's our decision, stakeholders' decision, on how we do that and present that to the public, but it will be for all the public, along with different stakeholders too.

David Hamilton: There will be several online virtual meetings that the public can be involved in, and we'll be asking a lot of public opinion about what the park should be, how the park is good now, how the park can be better in the future. And there will be some online tools as well that will not require you to be at a virtual meeting but that can be accessed at any time. 

So, all sorts of surveys and some site-specific things that you can actually point to on the map and say, 'Hey, this part of the park needs a playground, this part of the park needs an entrance, there's trouble in this part of the park where it doesn't drain well.' 

These relatively new virtual tools allow us to do that and I think they're actually going to allow us to get a much wider perspective from the public at large. You won't have to go to a meeting, you can do it from the comfort of your home, you can do it at any time, you can comment. You don't have to be the kind of person that likes to stand up in front of crowds like you would in a normal kind of charrette meeting ... You can you can be a shy person with good ideas versus the neighborhood gadfly that likes to talk.

SaportaReport: Sort of the same principles that you'd find in like a traditional kind of charrette meeting: like stick a sticker here, write on a post-it here, things like that, but virtually? That's an interesting point, if maybe you will get more participation, because people don't have to crowd into a church with a bunch of people they don't know.

David Hamilton: Our consultants are telling us ... even if [virtual participation] is not new, it's being used a lot more now because it has to be. But it's another thing that COVID has driven us toward which maybe is a better situation, an improvement. But everybody that interviewed for the job, and the consultant, really thought that this kind of virtual format, actually gave them better information and more information and broader perspectives.

SaportaReport: 
What else would y'all tell people, what else do people need to know about Freedom Park, planning, the next couple of years?

Stephanie Wolfgang: I think what we want people to be thinking about is a couple things. One: Do they even know where freedom Park is? That's a challenge that we've seen.

David's seen it for a very long time on the board, is that people still aren't really aware of where it is. And so I think that's kind of the first hurdle. And that's something that we're really hoping the master plan will help to address: boundaries, thresholds, that kind of thing, so people actually know where it is. 

And then we want people to think about programming: What would they like to be doing in the park? And how can the spaces for that activity be improved, whether that's just more trails because they want to bike more, or is it all about picnic space, is it about more performance space? So that's the kind of thing we want people to be bringing ideas about to our public input meetings, especially.

David Hamilton: There's a couple of sets of issues here. One of the the biggest set of issues is the fact that the park was put in in a relative hurry. It was built with available funds, when funds were being spent on the Olympics efforts. So maybe there was more money being spent on the Olympic Stadium than maybe on parks, but the park kind of had to be there and look good, but a lot of it didn't get finished.

This used to be a highway road bed and they literally had bridge embankments up and columns and beams which they had to tear down. But they left some of the landscape in place because they couldn't move it. Some of the land was compacted for a road and if you go through the park now and you see these sort of bare spots where nothing will grow, it's because the land was compacted and never 'uncompacted' because there's a road bed there basically.

And, because of the way the park was assembled, it is part of this big identity problem. It's a big "X" shape, it was supposed to be an intersection. It's got a road running through part of it. So it's linear, and you can literally go back and forth on neighborhood streets and you can pass by the park four times. And you pass by the park once in Candler Park and Old Fourth Ward and you never perceive that you're going through the same park. You really have to walk through it to understand that. 

And then there's the idea of gateway ... In my neighborhood, in Inman Park there's an old highway guardrail. And that's the way into the park. It's not a very good entry. It's not labeled, the signage isn't adequate. People, as Stephanie said, don't know where the park is. And the boundaries of the park: A lot of times they took people's backyards or part of people's backyards. 

So you're an ordinary park with a street system around it, but ... a lot of times the park backs up to people's backyards. And a lot of times over the years, maybe some of those folks have kind of taken more and more of the park. 

So there are some boundary issues, there are some identity issues that are that are really important. 

And the other thing is this is officially Atlanta's art park. It's the one thing over the years [on the Conservancy board] ... that everyone strongly agreed about, in every version of the board: This should be a special place for art.

It should be a — "world class" is overused — but it should be a world-class place for art, it should have national pieces, international pieces, local pieces, temporary art, all of this.

The thing that the consultants really love about this park is that it's where a lot of cultures come together. The Battle of Atlanta in the Civil War was fought here. Civil rights were fought for here: the King Center is on one side of the park, the Carter Center is on the other side of the park. It's got an incredible, potent cultural mix. Given that, and the weird linear nature of the park, it's a very unique design problem. And it's something that I think our consultants are really excited about. It's not the kind of park they get to design every day.

Stephanie Wolfgang: I'll add, kind of building on that narrative, is that, as a board, we're very interested in storytelling. So there are a lot of stories of strength, and of course there are stories of loss here because there were houses, homes, neighborhoods razed for the construction of this park. 

And that's work that several of our board members have done in the past couple years, working towards exhibits like Dwelling that showcase those stories of the past. 

That kind of storytelling and narrative is something we also want people to bring to the table and we want to see how we can celebrate that in the actual physicality of the park, as well.