Lindsay Street Park

Our Impact Our Projects Lindsay Street Park

These neighborhoods have fewer acres of planned green space than anywhere else in the city. We’re working to fix that.

The English Avenue and Vine City neighborhoods lie in the shadow of downtown Atlanta, less than a mile from the Atlanta Falcons’ new Mercedes Benz stadium. Yet these streets are not the lifeline to Atlanta; they are plagued with some of the highest rates of crime, unemployment and foreclosure in the city. In addition, these neighborhoods have fewer acres of planned green space than anywhere else in the city.

These two closely-knit neighborhoods also lie in the headwaters of Proctor Creek and its tributaries. Today, however, due to poor historical stormwater planning and impacts from development, Proctor Creek is besieged by high bacteria levels, illegal dumping, pollution and erosion. During heavy storm events, the community is inundated with contaminated overflows from the combined stormwater and sewer system. The pollutants from the Proctor Creek Watershed impact the local streams, and then flow directly into the Chattahoochee River, a main source of drinking water.

In 2010, Park Pride, a local citywide nonprofit focused on park and greenspace visioning worked with the community to create a broad plan for the neighborhoods using natural greenspaces as a way to recreate the historical streambeds that were long ago buried under development. This would allow the stormwater to more slowly absorb and filter into soils, instead of overwhelming the sewer system. Together with Park Pride, and numerous other partners, the Fund is now working to implement this comprehensive acquisition and restoration plan and Lindsay Street Park is the first of many projects that will create lasting change in these neighborhoods, one park at a time.

A Park with Purpose for English Avenue

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Through a community-driven process focused on the environment, the local economy, and most importantly, the people, this new urban park is providing numerous benefits.

Green shrubs and trees next to a large, green dumpster show the Lindsay Street Park site before the park

Before photo of Lindsay Street Park. Photo by Whitney Flanagan

After photo of Lindsay Street Park. Photo by Robin McKinney

Through a community-driven process focused on the environment, the local economy, and most importantly, the people, this Park With Purpose continues to provide numerous benefits:

We’ve transformed six vacant and blighted lots into the first park for the English Avenue community, providing a unique nature based setting in a densely urban environment. The neighborhood finally has a safe place for kids to play and for community members to gather.
Stormwater runoff from the adjacent street is being collected in a series of large raingardens, absorbing and cleaning the water before it reaches the stream that runs across the property.
Through a partnership with Greening Youth Foundation’s Atlanta Youth Corps, and with support from U-Haul and its customers, we have trained and employed four young adults from the community during the construction of the new park, expanding their skill sets and increasing their employment opportunities.
An additional job-training program in partnership with Georgia Build Up and Lifecycle Building Center allowed more than 20 residents to gain skills in asbestos abatement, as well as the deconstruction and demolition of an old home that was on the site. Materials from the home were salvaged and repurposed to support community groups and other nonprofits.
In Atlanta, the Park Ambassador program is supporting park champions who advocate for and help to activate their local Park with Purpose. The program provides resources, technical support, and capacity building for Ambassadors, who promote the project, organize events, and help build a more vibrant and resilient community around these greenspaces.
Partnering with grassroots organizations like the West Atlanta Watershed Alliance, Proctor Creek Stewardship Council and Community Improvement Association, we’ve provided educational opportunities for Proctor Creek Stewards and local residents through a Watershed Academy program.
Not to forget the wildlife, we collaborated with the Atlanta Botanical Garden and Trees Atlanta to ensure that all the new trees, shrubs and flowers we’re adding are native and help support local pollinator species, including our birds, bees and butterflies.

With all these great impacts, it is important to remember that this is just the beginning. The Fund will continue to collaborate with Park Pride and our numerous partners to implement the 2010 visioning plan that will help to reimagine this community, park by park.

A Comprehensive Approach to Conservation

Our Resourceful Communities team based in North Carolina, has been crucial in helping to build this coalition of local partners who have rallied around the Lindsay Street Park. RC staff have spent a great deal of time on the ground in Atlanta, facilitating workshops and helping residents and local stakeholders to build trust and rapport among themselves, in order to create a strong network of support for this park. RCP has been helping low wealth communities build capacity and access resources for more than 20 years and is a significant asset that we can offer this community.

In addition, our Conservation Leadership Network sponsored a peer exchange trip where officials from the City of Atlanta officials were able to travel to Philadelphia to see their innovative green infrastructure approaches to addressing stormwater flooding and combined sewer overflows. On their return, Atlanta officials created a Green Infrastructure Taskforce that has since passed a citywide green infrastructure/stormwater ordinance for all new development. They also began implementing demonstration projects throughout Atlanta, bringing this modern approach to additional communities.

Why This Project Matters

We believe successful conservation needs long-term community benefits. Going beyond land acquisition services, we engage the community and help plan, design and implement lasting strategies that balance environmental, economic and social objectives.

In addition, we strongly support a collaborative approach and seek a wide range of partners. The Lindsay Street Park project has required the support of residents, numerous community groups, nonprofit stakeholders, and a variety of financial supporters to help bring this park to life. We couldn’t have done it without the support of so many others!