The opening of Westside Park – the largest jewel on the BeltLine Emerald Necklace – has generated much excitement and is the result of years of hard work by many people and organizations. It reinforces that great places don’t occur by chance but result from dedicated collaboration between city government, philanthropy, non-profits, and residents. Key takeaways from Westside Park provide a roadmap for Atlanta to succeed in delivering the parks envisioned around the BeltLine and throughout the city as proposed in the ActivateATL master plan.

Financial commitment from the public sector is a critical catalyst to create new parks. The City of Atlanta invested more than $450 million across three mayoral administrations to purchase land for Westside Park, create the stunning 2.4-billion-gallon reservoir at its center, and fund initial park design and development. This resulted from extensive collaboration between the Department of Watershed Management and the Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) to meet both greenspace and water management goals – an approach also used successfully at Historic Fourth Ward Park and Rodney Cook Sr. Park. We must continue to find innovative ways to maximize public funding for our parks, which will inspire philanthropic investment.

Read the full article about building parks by Atlanta BeltLine Partnership at SaportaReport.