DEL.ICIO.USFirst phase of botanical garden expansion opens Saturday
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Just as the Atlanta Botanical Garden prepares to launch its “Moore in America” exhibit, the largest outdoor display of sculptor Henry Moore’s work in the United States, the garden gave media a preview Tuesday of the first phase of its $55 million green expansion project.
The project, begun in 2003, brings an additional 5 acres of garden space this spring, a new eco-friendly visitor center with living roofs and a parking deck to be shared with Piedmont Park.
LOUIE FAVORITE/lfavorite@ajc.com
One of the Henry Moore sculptures serves as a backdrop to a waterfall at the Southern Seasons Garden near the new visitors center.
The first phase — the deck, the Hardin Visitor Center, a 95,000-gallon underground cistern, an expanded pedestrian path and a portion of the Southern Seasons garden — debuts Saturday on schedule, despite the
Dec. 19 collapse of the canopy walk during construction that killed 66-year-old Angel Chupin and injured 18 others.
“The accident, emotionally, set us back. … Those crises just don’t happen at botanical gardens,” said executive director Mary Pat Matheson. “There were many moments, but most of those moments were grief for the men who were injured.”
The botanical garden will dedicate a private garden to the injured men and their families, Matheson said. Four of the 18 are back to work, five are scheduled to return this month and nine continue their recuperation, aaccording to Barkley Russell, spokeswoman for Hardin Construction, the leading contractor on the project.
The canopy walk, originally slated to open this spring, will be completed in spring 2010. The overhead walkway is part of the second phase of construction, which includes the conversion of the current garden driveway and parking lot into a waterfall and edible garden, Matheson said. The second phase will bring an additional 15 acres of usable space for a total of 30 acres.
The expansion changes the orientation of the garden, now facing Piedmont Park for the first time in 38 years, spokesman Danny Flanders said.
“Our back door became our front door,” Flanders said. “We [and Piedmont Park] have become two green spaces mirroring each other.”
Landscape architecture firm EDAW created the new garden plan, while architecture firm Jova/Daniels/Busby designed the new visitor center and parking deck to appear nestled into the garden. With green roofs filled with drought-tolerant plants, interiors made from local woods and products low in volatile organic compounds, the visitor center was designed to LEED (leadership in energy and environmental design) standards. The center houses a new gift shop and theater for educational programs. Admission will increase from $12 to $15 for adults. Parking, once free, will cost 75 cents for the first half-hour and $1 per additional half-hour.
The botanical garden funded the parking deck, which will house about 750 cars and has plant materials growing along its hillside exterior. It will be open to garden and Piedmont Park visitors alike. “The project was very sensitive in the community,” said Stanley Daniels of Jova/Daniels/Busby. “Our objective has been to have those who were opposed to it say, ‘Wow — I didn’t know it could be this good’ and see that it’s not an invasion of the park. That it fits.”
Neighborhood activist group Friends of Piedmont Park led a well-publicized grass-roots campaign in 2005 against the parking deck proposal, which was later approved by the Atlanta City Council and Mayor Shirley Franklin. The activist group also launched a legal battle with the garden, Piedmont Park Conservancy and the city of Atlanta, saying the construction planning violated state and city laws on open records and competitive bids. Ultimately, a Fulton Superior Court judge ruled that the conservancy was required to open its books about the access road to the deck, though the garden was not required as the nonprofit is a private entity.
Friends of Piedmont Park President Doug Abramson said Tuesday he has not seen the expansion, nor does he plan to. He remains concerned about the garden profiting from the parking deck without being required to disclose how those funds are spent.
“The best remembered part of the expansion is the parking deck and how it got there,” he said, explaining his opposition to the site of the deck. “I think that down the road, we’ll have a lot of people wondering: ‘How did we let this happen?’ “
Matheson said that future development in Atlanta such as the Beltline project — proposed to bring additional green space between the garden and Piedmont Park — will likely increase pedestrian traffic into the garden. “My hope is that one day, people will just be walking in so that [Atlanta doesn’t] need more parking facilities,” she said. “But right now, we need it.”
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