The City of Atlanta's Department of Parks and Recreation has released a detailed set of designs for the Memorial Drive Greenway, and for the first time the long-promised linear park on downtown's eastern flank looks like a buildable thing rather than a planning exercise. The site runs half a mile and covers 8.5 acres between Oakland Cemetery and the downtown Connector, bounded by Memorial Drive on the south and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive on the north.
The headline element is a skatepark spanning more than 2.5 acres, drawn up by New Lines Skateparks. Around it the plans lay out walking paths, plazas, flexible lawns, playgrounds and a dog park. Pond & Company and Atlanta-based Goode Van Slyke Architecture round out the design team, working to a "Rooted in Community" theme that officials say is meant to reference the city's tree canopy and the identities of the neighborhoods on either side.
The preferred concept, 3D renderings included, was unveiled last month at the last of three public open houses held between October and June. Phase one covers schematic design for all 8.5 acres plus design, permitting and construction on a single city block, which is the piece most likely to get built first.
Recent community feedback pushed four priorities: more shade, particularly around the playgrounds and the skatepark; preserving the protected bike network; expanded restroom access and more public art; and a hard look at pedestrian bridge locations alongside better at-grade crossings. That last item matters most, because Memorial Drive is a fast east-west corridor and a park nobody can safely walk into is just landscaping.
The money so far is modest and local. Design is funded by $560,037 in Atlanta City Council District 5 discretionary funds from the Moving Atlanta Forward bond and $500,000 from the Parks Department's Park Improvement Fund. The land is the bigger number: Invest Atlanta has spent roughly $11 million in Eastside Tax Allocation District funding assembling parcels over the past 15 years. Other partners include The Conservation Fund, Park Pride, Mailchimp cofounder and former competitive skateboarder Dan Kurzius, The Integral Group and the Friends of Memorial Drive Greenway.
One of those parcels carries some grief with it. The former Daddy D'z BBQ Joynt at 261 Memorial Drive, in business more than 30 years, is now boarded up; The Conservation Fund paid $1.3 million for it in an off-market deal reported in January. The Greenway idea itself dates to studies and land buys starting in 2001, was formalized in the 2016 Memorial Drive Vision Plan, then went quiet for the better part of a decade until the Parks Department restarted design work with Pond & Company last August.
Original reporting: Urbanize Atlanta (July 21, 2026)