“I travel around the country looking at
projects like this,” says architect Markham Smith. He’s a founding principal with the architecture firm Smith Dalia, which has designed more than 75 projects on the BeltLine corridor.
“There aren’t many with as significant an
impact as the BeltLine. It’s amazing how it has altered people’s attitudes about what it’s like to live in Atlanta; it’s chang- ing not only what we see around us, but how we live our lives.”
KIT SUTHERLAND is a longtime resident of Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward. It’s an up-and-coming neighborhood with a vibrant history—the birth and burial place of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.—but one that has struggled with high crime rates and poverty in the past. A community liaison for the neighbor- hood’s business association, Sutherland has been pulling for the BeltLine since the early 2000s, back when the project was still a pipe dream. “Atlanta doesn’t have a waterfront, or
a port—but now it has the BeltLine and the associated parks,” Sutherland says. “Those urban amenities aren’t going anywhere, so people feel comfortable putting time, energy, and money into the surrounding communities. “The BeltLine and Historic Fourth
Ward Park are prompting investment— physical as well as psychological—in communities that might have languished otherwise. People want to believe in community. They will care about and nurture their surroundings if they mean something to them personally. We’re seeing this phenomenon play out in the Old Fourth Ward and surrounding neighborhoods.”
Sutherland has always been a BeltLine believer, but most Atlanta residents have needed some convincing. Luke Darch, 27, used to work near the BeltLine’s east
side. Back then, his impressions of the corridor were as unsavory as mine. “My original experience with the BeltLine was walking out back of the building into an overgrown area and en- campments,” he says. “To now see all the shops, restaurants, and activity has been pretty amazing to watch. The BeltLine is where everyone my age wants to live. It’s going to be the driver of everything going on in Atlanta from here on out.” Darch himself is putting money on it. Three years ago, he bought a 1920s bungalow in the Grant Park neighbor- hood, five houses up the street from a future BeltLine extension. Local businesses are watching the
transformation of rail to trail as eagerly as homeowners. Stacy Sax, general man- ager of FitWit Old Fourth Ward, opened her company’s third gym in a building alongside the BeltLine in 2015. She hosts frequent group workouts on the trail and free yoga classes in the park. From her perspective, scenes like these are good for everyone, not just fitness enthusiasts. “Those that live in the community or those just passing through see people exercising, playing recreational sports, playing in the park with their kids,” she says. “Activity begets activity. It’s infectious.”
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