Beltline News

Well, no sooner do I quit complaining about Atlanta's gridlocked traffic and lack of pedestrian access, than the Beltline makes a major announcement:

Atlanta, GA – Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) Commissioner Vance Smith, Jr., and Atlanta Beltline, Inc. (ABI) President and CEO Terri Montague today announced closing on a purchase option agreement that, if exercised, would give the Beltline control of the Southwest and a portion of the Southeast Right of Way (ROW). The agreement gives the City the option to acquire all of the remaining GDOT ROW along the Beltline Corridor as contemplated in the Five Year Work Plan. Under the terms of the agreement, GDOT will give ABI exclusive rights to purchase the property until June 30, 2012. In the meantime, ABI has secured a lease of the property in order to begin preparing it for public use in the coming years.

The Beltline Five Year Work Plan called for acquiring 35 to 37 percent of the 22 mile Beltline ROW by July 2011. Through this agreement, 48 percent of the corridor is now secure for use by the Beltline. ABI completed the purchase of the 4.6 mile Northeast corridor in October, 2008.

The segments of ROW in this transaction run from Allene Avenue to Lena Street in the Southwest (3.12 miles) and from Wylie Street to Memorial Drive in the Southeast (.36 miles). Both former freight rail lines are unused and have been granted abandonment by the federal Surface Transportation Board, which will allow ABI to proceed with planning and implementation of transit and trails for these segments. At this time, ABI is partnering with MARTA to complete an Environmental Impact Statement by summer 2010 that will help to determine how the optioned property would ultimately be used for transit and trails.

The Beltline is a $2.8 billion redevelopment project that will shape the way Atlanta grows over the next 25 years and beyond. The project provides a network of public parks, multi-use trails, and transit along a historic 22-mile railroad corridor circling downtown and connecting many neighborhoods directly to each other. The Beltline is easily the most comprehensive economic development effort ever undertaken in the City of Atlanta and among the largest, most wide-ranging urban redevelopment projects currently underway in the United States.

Georgia DOT gave the Beltline exclusive rights to purchase the property until June 30, 2012. The Beltline paid Georgia DOT $10 (yes, that's ten dollars, not 10 million) for the Option to Purchase, which will be applied to the final amount upon closing. For the next 12 months, the purchase price will be the appraised amount of $10,727,000 for the land in the Southwest and $2,823,000 in the Southeast. If the property is not purchased during the 12-month period, another appraisal will determine the purchase price.

As of July 6, 2009, the Beltline will lease the property from the Georgia DOT for $100 a year. The lease gives the Beltline permission to build the trail facilities, either interim or permanent, contemplated in the Beltline Redevelopment Plan. The term of the Lease is 4 years, with the option to extend for an additional 3 years on a year-by-year basis.

So this is exciting news for anyone who wants to see more pedestrian access and more mass transit in Atlanta. The Beltline now owns significant portions of the northeast, southeast and southwest quadrants of the route, although there are still significant challenges with acquiring the active rail lines in the quadrant in which I live, the Northwest. But despite this, or perhaps because of this, I keep on volunteering to participate in the various stakeholder groups, advisory boards, and neighborhood advocacy organizations that have taken up so much of my time lately.