Market: Parks and Trails

Reeves Young Recently completed the construction of a new Town Green for the City of Avondale Estates. Avondale Estates is building on its reputation as a green city, and the 2-acre Town Green will serve as an economic driver for the downtown and a place for the community to gather. The scope of work included demolishing existing structures, grading for future mixed-use Buildings, road improvements, pavilion, and Town Green landscape and hardscape. The project includes walking paths, intimate gardens, open fields for passive recreation, a pavilion for outdoor performances, space for events, provisions for food trucks, a children’s area, a dog playground, and other amenities for residents, businesses, and visitors to enjoy.

The Reeves Young/CERM/HGOR/Portman design-build team was chosen by the city of Atlanta to complete the Westside Park at Bellwood Quarry and related site work. The project consists of conceptual master planning, design, prescribing ecological restorative treatments for highly degraded industrial sites, permitting, and construction for Phase I improvements and amenities. The first phase of the $26.5 million 36-acre projects will include a gateway entrance at the intersection of Johnson Road and Grove Park Place. The gateway, which will have lighting, signage, and graphics, is set on the park’s north side. The restoration of Grove Park Place will include resurfacing the road and improvement of the greenery along the corridor. The park will have trails, a pedestrian connection to the Proctor Creek Greenway, and an ADA-accessible overlook.

This project involved the renovation and expansion of an existing city of Atlanta park located on a former landfill. Reeves Young was contracted by the city of Atlanta to create the first-of-its-kind energy cost-neutral park. Park amenities included a splash pad, an enhanced playground with interactive play elements, walking paths that encircle the park, a Little League baseball field, a pavilion, and restroom facilities. Photovoltaic solar panels that act as a shade structure at one of the park’s entrances produce energy, which is sold back to Georgia Power, offsetting the entirety of the park’s energy costs.

Reeves Young served as the prime contractor for this brand-new park in the upper Proctor Creek area. This watershed project manages persistent stormwater flooding issues in the area. A vacant property with blighted structures was transformed into a vibrant community asset. The approximately two-acre park includes a rain garden, constructed wetlands, and other green infrastructure that manages 3.5M gallons of stormwater runoff annually. Heavy civil services included self-performed demolition, installation of underground detention systems, utilities, lighting, landscaping, and hardscapes.

The Atlanta BeltLine project is the most comprehensive transportation and economic development effort ever undertaken in the city of Atlanta and is among the largest, most wide-ranging urban redevelopment programs in the United States. As General Contractor, Reeves Young developed significant pieces of one of the most visible components to the project — the 17-acre, multiactivity Historic Fourth Ward Park. Work completed included building the recirculating stream, a splash pad, waterfalls, amphitheater/plaza, and restroom facilities on the five-acre south parcel as well as the large outdoor trellis, event lawn, and sculpture garden on the north parcel. Reeves Young also built the third parcel, which includes Atlanta’s first public skate park, with over 15,000 SF of bowls, curbs, and smooth rolling concrete mounds. The parcel also includes a sports field, a shade trellis topped with solar panels, and public restroom facilities.

Part of the second expansion of Atlanta BeltLine’s Eastside Trail, this project continued the trail from Kirkwood Avenue to Memorial Drive, over Fulton Terrace/Mauldin Street. The scope of the project included a ramp and stair connection at the Fulton Terrace bridge and pedestrian intersection improvements at Kirkwood Avenue, Memorial Drive, and Bill Kennedy Way.