In February 2019, Central Atlanta Progress put a name and a price tag on an idea that had been floating around downtown Atlanta planning circles for years: build a cap over the Downtown Connector and reconnect the neighborhoods that Interstate 75/85 severed more than half a century ago.
The project was called The Stitch. The estimated cost was $300 to $400 million. The vision was 17 acres of new green space, dog parks, and pedestrian walkways spanning roughly three-quarters of a mile between Ted Turner Drive and Piedmont Avenue — turning one of downtown's most hostile stretches of infrastructure into something people would actually want to walk across.
The Problem It Solves
Anyone who has tried to walk from the west side of downtown to the hospital district or the Bank of America building on the east side knows the problem firsthand. The Downtown Connector carved a canyon through the city in the 1950s and 1960s, and the pedestrian bridges and narrow sidewalks that cross it are loud, unpleasant, and — for many people — reason enough to drive instead.
The Stitch would eliminate that barrier. As one of the project's planners described it: "You'll be able to traverse from the west side of downtown over to the east side without needing a vehicle."
The approach borrowed from proven models. Dallas's Klyde Warren Park, a 5.2-acre deck park built over the Woodall Rodgers Freeway in 2012, became the primary reference point. Seattle's Freeway Park offered a longer track record. Both demonstrated that highway caps could create real urban space — not just decorative lids, but places where people gather, eat, exercise, and spend time.
Why It Matters for Downtown
At the time of the proposal, the area around the MARTA Civic Center Station and the Georgia Power Building sat in a kind of no-man's-land — technically downtown, but functionally cut off from the energy of Centennial Olympic Park, Peachtree Center, and the hotel district to the west. The Stitch was designed to change that by creating continuous, walkable green space at street level where the highway currently sits below grade.
Central Atlanta Progress positioned the project as a catalyst for private investment. The logic was familiar from other highway cap projects: build the public infrastructure, and developers will build around it. The 5-to-10-year timeline acknowledged the scale of what was being proposed, but the organization was clear that this was not a thought exercise. Engineering studies were underway. GDOT was engaged.
Six years later, the project would evolve into a $700 million commitment with federal, state, and city funding — larger and more complex than the original proposal, but built on the same fundamental insight: the highway that divided downtown Atlanta could become the thing that reconnects it.
Original reporting by Ross Terrell and Rickey Bevington, Georgia Public Broadcasting, February 28, 2019.