December 2018 - Parks & Recreation - 59

destrian pathway to Krog Street and
DeKalb Avenue. Work began on the
second phase of the Eastside Trail in
July 2018 and includes extending the
trail to Memorial Drive.
In March 2018, the city and ABI
acquired 63 acres from CSX Transportation for $25.8 million. " This
plan is part of a long string of acquisitions through the end of the year, "
says Clyde Higgs, ABI's interim CEO.
" In March, Mayor [Keisha Lance]
Bottoms led an announcement of a
historic purchase of the Southside
corridor for the BeltLine...that will
ultimately connect the Eastside Trail
to the Westside Trail. That was a
game-changing acquisition for us. "
The project includes redevelopment of the 4.5-mile railroad
corridor, spanning from University Avenue to Glenwood Avenue
and linking 18 neighborhoods,
five schools and three parks. Once
completed, the newly built trail will
offer outdoor enthusiasts 14 miles
of uninterrupted pathways - from
the Westside Trail to Eastside Trail.

A Robust Transit System
Transit on the Atlanta BeltLine remains at the forefront of the connectivity issue among many residents and
will serve as an expansion of the Atlanta Streetcar system. These streetcars
will run alongside the multiuse trails
with the goal of connecting more people to the downtown and crosstown
lines and Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid
Transit Authority (MARTA) stations
across Atlanta, thereby offering some
relief to long commute times.
In October 2018, MARTA board
of directors approved $2.7 million
worth of transit expansion projects, with $570 million allocated

MAP COURTESY OF ABI

The Atlanta BeltLine project will
transform a 22-mile loop of a neglected
railroad corridor.

toward outfitting 15 miles of streetcar tracks for the Atlanta BeltLine.
" Transit is really connecting people to workforce development, and
that's what enhances affordability, "
says Jenny Odom, ABI's communications & media relations manager. " That's the bigger picture. "

Boosting Economic
Development
What impact is the BeltLine having on Atlanta's economy? As
an example, just on the Westside
Trail alone, Higgs says: " We're
tracking over $300 million in private investment that is coming
[from] the commercial corridors
of the Westside, and that's part
of our promise on the delivery of
the BeltLine - making sure that it
has a significant economic development and job creation impact. "

He adds that ABI is monitoring
more than 11,000 jobs that have
been created to date along the
Atlanta BeltLine.

Hitting the Reset Button
In the early 2000s, addressing the
critical need for affordable housing
for middle- to lower-income residents, the city of Atlanta - via
a legislative mandate - directed
ABI to fund 5,600 affordable and
workforce housing units in the Tax
Allocation District (TAD) by 2030.
However, about two years into
the program, the Great Recession
hit " and that slowed our ability to
raise funding...so we really didn't
get the influx of tax dollars that
we thought we would have, " says
Sykes. Although she says the market began to bounce back in 2011-
2012, ABI still fell short in terms

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December 2018 - Parks & Recreation

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