New conceptual renderings for the Memorial Drive Greenway show an 8.5-acre linear park running from the Downtown Connector east to Oakland Cemetery, with plazas, water features, walking paths and a roughly 2.5-acre skatepark. The project has been decades in the making, is still not fully funded, and would put a substantial green space along Grant Park's northern edge while reconnecting the neighborhoods on either side of Memorial Drive.
The design team's concept, titled \"Rooted in Community,\" takes its cues from Atlanta's tree canopy and the surrounding neighborhoods. Proposed shade, restroom and stage structures use branching forms drawn from trees and organic growth. The skatepark, designed by the firm New Line, mixes beginner and intermediate areas with an urban skate plaza and a bowl.
What the community asked for at a late-June open house was more shade — particularly around the skatepark and playground. That feedback reflects a shift in how Atlantans are treating summer heat as a design constraint rather than an inconvenience, and it is the kind of request that is far cheaper to honor at the concept stage than after construction.
The funding picture is partial. Bond funds and the city's parks department are supporting the design work, per Urbanize, and Invest Atlanta has spent roughly $11 million in tax allocation district money acquiring property along the corridor. Building the park itself will require additional funding that has not been identified.
The preferred concept now moves into further design, engineering and permitting. For downtown, the relevance is the connection: a continuous green corridor from the Connector's edge to Oakland Cemetery would give the southeastern side of the city center something it has never had — a walkable link between downtown and Grant Park that is not a road.
Original reporting: Axios Atlanta (2026-07-23)
