With about 180 showing up at Decatur’s Ebster Gym on June 27, the city unveiled a draft master plan for the old United Methodist Children’s Home that essentially favors passive, “park-like” green space over athletic facilities.
Cooper Carry, a city consultant, assimilated three earlier concept schemes into the new plan. Kyle Reis, a Cooper Carry associate principal, said those concepts and Wednesday’s plan were culled largely out of community input over the last five months that included 8500 “unique comments.”
Although there’s considerable work left before a master plan comes before Decatur’s planning and city commissions (probably in August or September), Reiss did say the new design is “pretty close to final.”
The property totals 77 acres, with the rear (eastern) 22 acres slated to remain as woods and a lake. The middle and southern portions in the new scheme will include an amphitheater, an arboretum with natural plantings, a cross-country trail and other passive, low-maintenance green space.
It also includes a track (long desired by the city and the school system) surrounding a multi-purpose field for soccer, lacrosse and ultimate frisbee.
But a number of folks attending Wednesday were surprised and even angered the plan eliminates other more intense recreational uses. It doesn’t, for instance, include a baseball/softball facility, or a tennis complex. Decatur High School plays home games/matches in all three sports off campus and (in the case of baseball and softball) on undersized fields.
Even the track, as the plan’s single most expensive component, probably won’t get built for a number of years.
“What we heard,” Reis said, “is that lots of people thought of this as park space. If there was going to be a field, they wanted a multi-purpose field for flexible activities. Unfortunately, a baseball field is not flexible.”
Other features include 70 units of housing that will have, Reis said, “some sort of affordability—definitely not market rate.” The breakdown is 30 individual multiplex (apartment) units, 25 cottages and 15 duplexes.
All the property’s historic structures will get preserved. Part of the work ahead is determining the various uses for those buildings. Nineteen were identified in 2015 by Kennesaw State University as qualifying for a potential historic district, with seven of those built between 1903 and 1919.
“We see them holding artists’ studios or other uses with a community, non-profit focus,” Reis said. “We’re looking at the [early 20th century] Diary Barn as possibly an events center.”
Other work over the coming weeks include selecting those who will partner with the city in paying for various components, and how to phase various projects which ultimately could take 15 to 20 years.
