Atlanta Beltline to get direct garden entry after years

Atlanta is constantly a growing city, so it makes sense that one of its most colorful cultural institutions is growing too. Atlanta Botanical Garden is embarking on a project that will expand it by 30% and take it straight to the Atlanta Beltline. So good news, Paul Milligan is live in Midtown this morning. It's going to be a busy few years for employees at the garden. This is a big job. Yeah. And a long time coming too. Mary Pat Matheson, how long have you been waiting for this day, for the permits to be in and launching this project? Well, the vision was 10 years ago, so that's a decade of my life and everybody else's, but almost a year to get the permits. But they're here in hand. We're ready to go. The fence is up. And construction is happening. We're coming around. There are workers here and it is happening. So let's go back to the beginning. For folks that don't know, the Atlanta Botanical Garden is expanding by about 30 percent in acres. Eight new acres of gardens, partly this woodland that you'll walk through on the way to the new garden. And then three acres, no, five acres of water terraces and secret little passage gardens. And we've got some renderings and maps to kind of give you all a better idea. So where we're standing on the Beltline right here, this will be where the new entrance is, right? Yes. You would walk right into the Visitor Center and we've got a little plaza on the Beltline where we can do free programs for anyone who comes along. Come plant an herb garden and take it to your... deck in Midtown. Wouldn't that be fun? I love that. You really can reach so many more community members this way. And Tim behind the camera asked a good question. We want to clarify. He said, well, you've got a new entrance on the Beltline. What happens to the old entrance? I love to say one garden with two front doors. Bring your car, come in the parking deck, enjoy all of the garden and the new gardens, and then leave the way you came in. Come on your bicycle, walk in the Beltline entrance. If you walk in, you can come in the Beltline entrance and you can leave out the Yeah, yeah. It's very versatile. I love that. Okay, so more park means more tree canopy, too. You guys are going to be bringing in a lot of trees here. We're bringing in 800 trees. We've already marked them. They're growing right now. They'll be in the ground by early spring of 2029. Wow. And they're huge. Some of them are already 18 feet. These are not like little saplings. You're growing them as we speak, and so you mentioned 2029. Is that sort of the timeline for this project? Yeah, this is a big project, so it'll take a little over two years. So our goal is to open in spring of 2029. And now that we have that golden permit, we're going to do that. Well, I'll tell you, I mean, we've been here for a few minutes as we've stood here. There are so many people on the Beltline in this stretch. They are biking, they're running, they're walking. And so all of those people now will have that direct access. So from where we're standing in 2029, what are we going to see right here? This will be literally the visitor center entrance right here. Well, we're going to have plantings in front of it. So there'll be lots of beautiful trees. There's a lot of native trees in here. Okay. And then we were just looking at this wonderful view. Oh, you can see straight through to the building. You're going to see Midtown from here. Yeah, that's cool. And then our visitor center is one story with a green roof, and it's open air, so you can look through it all the way to see the new gardens. Okay, yeah. So you can get a peek-a-boo view of the visitor center, the terrace gardens, and the city of Atlanta, even from the Beltline. Yeah, it's going to be really neat. And you said before, some of the design inspiration, which I think folks can tell in the renderings, come from this sort of like Italian garden. feel, right? Very much so. The water gardens help take up the grade, and people love water. And if we're in a serious drought, we can turn the big fountains off and keep the water so we're not evaporating a lot of really important water in a drought. But they're beautiful. The sound and music of water is wonderful. And we were really inspired by Villa d'Este outside of Rome and many other Italian gardens, but it's going to look distinctly like Atlanta. Of course, yeah. That's That's us. Yeah, I love this. This is really, really exciting. I know, again, for a project that's been in the works for so long, you must just be thrilled. You know, normally on TV, we'd say, well, don't show the construction fence. And you're like, show it. Show them what's happening. Absolutely. And pretty soon, it's going to have images of what's to come. I cannot wait. Come see it even while it's so much fun to watch construction. I know it is. I love to see it. Yeah, well, we get to watch the city and the garden grow. So Mary Pat Matheson, great to see you. Congrats on all the work. And again, I mean, we get to watch it, watch it from beginning to end. And it'll be so amazing to be able to enter the garden straight from the beltline because you know what that means. You leave the car at home. You don't need to drive here anymore. You can walk to Atlanta Botanical Garden. How about that? That in itself is a huge draw. But I love that you introduced us to this. So now we know what's going on. And those renderings, Paul, this is going to be stunning. Gorgeous, right? Stunning, pretty. I cannot wait until imagine the morning Mary Pat 2029 when you and I are there saying here it is. It's open the new entrance. We may have to have some champagne. You know what? Let's make a date right now. Put it on the calendar. Champagne bottles to pop on that day. Deservedly so. All right, Paul, thank you so much. And for more info on the expansion plans, you can follow the links at Fox 5 Atlanta dot com. Just look for Paul's story under the good day section.