BYLINE:    COLIN CAMPBELL
DATE: April 27, 2004
PUBLICATION: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The (GA)
EDITION: Home; The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
SECTION: Metro News
PAGE: B2

The idea of erecting a 500-car parking garage in Piedmont Park has been around for months. But the plan was a quiet one until Thursday's neighborhood meeting, followed by an article in the paper.

The proposal makes some people hopping mad. Remember the Joni Mitchell song that says you don't know what you've got till it's gone? "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot."

That's a cheap shot in this case. The proposed garage could be hidden in a wooded cliff that few Atlantans notice.

But let's go back a bit. Piedmont Park is much more popular than it was 10 or 20 years ago. The Piedmont Park Conservancy, which backs the new garage, is the main reason for that. Another reason is the booming popularity of Midtown.

Anyway, lots more cars are descending on the area, and during special park events they're a special burden on nearby streets and neighborhoods.
Meanwhile, the private, nonprofit Atlanta Botanical Garden -- which occupies 30 acres of forest and gardens between the park and Piedmont Avenue -- also has grown much more popular, and it needs more parking than its 120-car lot.

If the Botanical Garden added several extra levels to its present lot, director Mary Pat Matheson tells me, the result would cast a killer shadow over the garden's greenhouse. That's why the Botanical Garden wants to hide a garage in the steep, wooded and currently trashy hillside behind Piedmont Park's Magnolia Hall.
As for the public-private conservancy, which manages Piedmont Park, it thinks the proposed garage (which the Botanical Garden would pay to build) could be good for everyone.

Debbie McCown, the conservancy's director, told me Monday that the garage would be a winner if it doesn't hurt the park, if it doesn't cost the conservancy money, if the conservancy benefits financially from the garage, and if users of the park can use the garage.

McCown thinks all those things are possible. So does director Matheson at the Botanical Garden. Yet both agree that if City Hall or the public doesn't want a garage in Piedmont Park, it won't happen. So now's the time to think.

I asked Matheson why the Botanical Garden hadn't set aside future parking areas years ago, instead of covering its acreage with gardens. Matheson replied that nobody expected so many visitors.

What about building a parking deck in a commercial area on Piedmont Avenue, directly north of Storza Woods? Matheson said the garden's older members couldn't walk that far -- and that shuttle buses would be inconvenient.
Couldn't the Botanical Garden build a garage elsewhere on its own land? Yes, Matheson said. Its second choice was in the southeast corner of Storza Woods.

As for the conservancy, its need for an on-site garage seems less urgent. I asked McCown if parking in the neighborhoods around Piedmont Park would still be a problem when the city, as desired, acquires a new fairground or "special-events venue" (with parking!) to take the pressure off Piedmont Park. McCown seemed unsure.

I'd say the case for the garage is plausible, and worth examining. But it isn't strong enough yet to silence a feeling that there already are too many buildings in Piedmont Park, and quite a few "authorized" cars besides.