Colin Campbell - Staff
Sunday, May 2, 2004

The gathering storm over building a 500-car garage in Piedmont Park could degenerate into civil war.

On one side, you have the private Atlanta Botanical Garden. It urgently wants to build a garage on a steep hill in Piedmont Park for the many elderly, nighttime and out-of-town visitors to the garden's formal walks and greenhouses, on which the garden has spent millions.

Joining the garden (but nervously, because of its more public role) is the public-private Piedmont Park Conservancy, which, like the botanical garden, has attracted huge private donations. The conservancy has done a superb job of helping the city restore the long-seedy queen of Atlanta's urban parks, and most Atlantans are grateful despite the cavils of some neighbors.

Cars in green parks drive lots of people wild. I wrote the other day that the proposal for a one-acre multistory deck (which would be dug into a cliff) was "worth examining" --- though I added that the idea wasn't strong enough yet to overcome a feeling that the park already suffers from too many buildings and cars.
Despite my doubts, anti-car readers pummeled me with arguments calling the parking lot an outrage and a horror.

The critics shout NO to cars. They said the marketplace could build lots in nearby commercial areas along Piedmont Avenue and Monroe Drive. They said MARTA needs to wake up and provide convenient public transit. They said paying visitors to the botanical garden should walk more and resort to shuttle buses if necessary.
To avoid further unpleasantness, I hereby divulge my SECRET PLAN to end this war. It won't please everybody, but the time has come. (Kettle drums. Bugles.)
Currently, the Atlanta Botanical Garden has worked out the following basic deal with the Piedmont Park Conservancy: The garden would spend millions to build the garage on adjacent park property, and the conservancy, in return, would get some parking, some money --- and a valuable new entrance to the park through botanical garden land.

But the botanical garden could offer something much more valuable: its entire 15-acre forest, known as Storza Woods.

True, the Atlanta Botanical Garden has plans for this forest, such as elevated walkways and environmental displays for kids --- including schoolkids, who won't have to pay. But the garden's core is its formal gardens, which cover a separate 15 acres. If the group gave Storza Woods to the park, the conservancy could make it the centerpiece of its plans to improve 50 adjacent acres known as the North Woods.

Piedmont Park gets a big, beautiful forest, and the botanical garden gets a super convenient parking deck on public land. (Of course, the garage really would have to be extremely low-profile, and it would be a disaster if its traffic patterns diminished the park experience for others.)

Some people at the garden will snort derisively at such a swap. But even the beautiful, respected Atlanta Botanical Garden --- which occupies city land under a 50-year lease that needs to be renewed in less than 25 years --- tries to get along with a changing and growing city. For decades, Piedmont Park deteriorated. Now it's improving fast and eager to expand, so it can offer its riches to everybody, rich and poor.