A look ahead: Atlanta’s attractions expand in 2015

Atlanta History Center

The biggest news at the Atlanta History Center is the plan to move the Cyclorama from its home in Grant Park to a new building on the history center’s Buckhead grounds. Construction on the new building begins this summer, and the 42-by-365-foot painting will move some time in 2016. The spectacular canvas, depicting the Battle of Atlanta, probably won’t re-open to the public until 2017.

But even before the big picture makes its move, there are other major changes afoot at the center.

In 2014, the History Center completed its largest capital campaign ever (at least up until that point in time), funding an enhanced entryway, major changes in the lobby/atrium/gift shop areas, a new major exhibition on Atlanta’s history and other improvements that president and CEO Sheffield Hale considers a complete face-lift for the 88-year-old institution.

Those changes will be complete by this summer, and the center will turn a more welcoming visage to the public, Hale said. Some of those changes are already in place:

The Atlanta Botanical Garden

Another project begun in 2014 will come to completion this year when the Atlanta Botanical Garden opens access to its Storza Woods and fires up the stove at Linton’s in the Garden.

The restaurant will be a plant-to-plate concept restaurant, and another enterprise of noted Atlanta chef Linton Hopkins, creator of Restaurant Eugene and Holeman and Finch Public House.

Hopkins has already assumed management of the Botanical Garden’s cafe, which has been rebranded as the Cafe at Linton’s. Linton’s in the Garden, with a planned opening in November, will be housed in a two-story contemporary structure to be built at the center of the garden.

Hopkins was the first chef to participate in the garden’s chef cooking series when the Edible Garden opened in 2010. His new full-service restaurant will extend that mission, demonstrating how to develop meals around freshly-grown vegetables and herbs.

The Storza Woods section of the garden will also open in April, bringing visitors into a 15-acre retreat at the north end of the garden that shelters some of the city’s last mature hardwood forest.

While preserving century-old trees, the expansion is creating walkways and “rambles” in the woods to take advantage of an area that has been largely untouched since 1904.

Also on tap in 2015: A satellite Atlanta Botanical Garden campus in Gainesville, featuring wooded walks, a visitor center and a 2,000-seat amphitheater, will open in the spring.

The 168-acre site was donated to the Atlanta Botanical Garden in 2002 by Lessie Smithgall and her late husband Charles. About $21 million will be expended on these Gainesville developments by year’s end, but there is more to come, with plans for a native plant conservation nursery, a student training and education center and an interactive children’s garden.

Center for Puppetry Arts

In the culmination of an effort that began eight years ago, the Center for Puppetry Arts will finally complete a museum to display its one-of-a-kind Jim Henson and international puppet collections.

The museum is part of a $14 million, 15,000-square-foot expansion of the center’s Midtown complex.

The old yellow-brick structure that was once the Spring Street Elementary School will also be getting a new library, more archival space and a renovated entryway. Work on the project began last July, and new spaces should be open by fall 2015.

Some of the funds for the project came from an online auction of Muppet memorabilia donated by Steve Whitmire, a longtime member of Jim Henson’s troupe and the voice of Kermit the Frog and Ernie since Henson’s death in 1990.

The new museum, called Worlds of Puppetry, entered the planning stages in 2007, when Henson’s family announced it was giving the Center for Puppetry Arts 400 puppets from Henson’s collection, including examples of Big Bird, Elmo, Grover, Cookie Monster, Bert, Ernie, Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog.

“There’s not going to be any collection as large as what’s going to be at the Center for Puppetry Arts, ” said Bonnie Erickson, executive director of the Jim Henson Legacy.

The new museum’s Global Collection exhibit will be devoted to puppetry traditions in Europe and elsewhere.

“Each gallery features interactive opportunities that keep the experience both hands-on and minds-on,” said puppetry center executive director Vince Anthony.

Zoo Atlanta

Zoo Atlanta is known internationally for its success in breeding pandas and its extensive collection of western lowland gorillas. Some curators call these large creatures the “charismatic megafauna.”

But zoos are keenly aware of customer preference, and Zoo Atlanta’s numbers reveal that visitors spend more time in the reptile house than any other area of the zoo.

For that reason it made sense last year when the zoo announced that its largest fund-raising effort ever was intended to build a new home for snakes, lizards, alligators and their scaly friends. The current reptile house is the oldest building at the zoo, dating from the early 1960s.

Scaly Slimy Spectacular: The Amphibian and Reptile Experience will open sometime this spring.

The result of a $24 million capital campaign, the 111,000-square-foot environment will house more than 60 animal species. Displays will incorporate new techniques in exhibit design, including interactive digital signage that can offer extensive background information and even video clips.

A portion of the reptile house will focus on Georgia’s wildlife, such as the Eastern Diamondback rattlesnake, the largest venomous snake in North America and the little glass frog, the smallest species of frog in North America.

A 45-foot glass dome will shelter an environment that includes handcrafted rock-work and a 60,000-gallon tank.