Arthur Blank Family Foundation

By MARIA SAPORTA/Staff

In less than two years, the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation has given away $11.1 million to preserve more than 600 acres inside I-285.

The foundation has awarded $4.6 million to 27 projects, and it looks forward to granting more next spring.

As good as that sounds, it's only a baby step toward becoming a thriving, livable city with a well-maintained network of green spaces, parks and paths.

The Blank Foundation estimated that the area inside I-285 would need at least 18,000 acres just to meet the national average of green space. Right now, about 6,600 acres are protected. That shows how far we need to go just to break even.

The story inside the city of Atlanta is much the same. Mayor Shirley Franklin appointed a task force last year that recommended the city double its green space to 6,000 acres within 10 years.

The challenges are significant --- money, maintenance, governance, collaboration and leadership. On that last note --- leadership --- there's cause for optimism.

Franklin soon will name a high-level commission on parks. She has tapped Ira Jackson, president of the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, to chair the effort.

Jackson was picked because he has a strong background in both the public and private sectors. Before coming to Atlanta, he was director for the Center of Business and Government at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Before that, he was an executive vice president of BankBoston and served as chief of staff to the mayor of Boston.

"He's challenged me to think big and be a can-do mayor," Franklin said of Jackson. "This will be the 'how-to' plan, the implementation plan for increasing parks and green space in the city."

The new commission will begin with recommendations from the task force headed by Barbara Faga, chairman of EDAW, a landscape architectural firm. The task force not only called for increasing green space, but also for setting up an independently financed parks district and creating a 500-acre park.

As Jackson sees it, Atlanta has a rich history of parks and green space, but it's a history that's been trampled by growth and a lack of focus.

After being in Atlanta less than a year, Jackson has become a student of the city's origins. He often refers to the Atlanta of 100 years ago, when plans were drafted by the top landscape architectural firm in the country, the one founded by Frederick Law Olmsted.

"My impression is that Atlanta is rediscovering its past and its once fairly glorious vision of great parks and the meaning of green space to the vitality of the city," Jackson said.

"Atlanta once was a great park city at the urging of the city's leaders. Think of Piedmont Park, Grant Park, Ansley Park, Druid Hills and Olmsted Park. I think there's increasing recognition in Atlanta that these are jewels," he added. "It's almost as if Atlanta is being revealed back to itself."

Despite that growing recognition, funding for parks often is the first thing that gets cut when budgets are tight.

And the city, because of its focus on other issues, has not been as opportunistic in acquiring green space and maintaining parks as it needs to be.

For instance, the Blank Foundation announced in late 2001 that it would spend between $20 million and $30 million on its green initiative within three years.

Now it looks as if its grants will be much closer to $20 million, not because the money isn't there, but because organizations have not met the foundation's conditions.

The foundation requires that 60 percent of a project's funding comes from other sources and that provisions are made to maintain the green space after it's acquired.

"We obviously don't want to leave the purchase of land to chance," said Franklin, who sees the new commission as defining a strategy for acquisition, maintenance and dedicated funding.

One local government making strides with green space is DeKalb County, where citizens passed a $125 million bond referendum to finance the effort.

The Blank Foundation was able to partner with DeKalb County on several projects, including the purchase of 136-acre Intrenchment Creek.

"Parks and green space have to become strategic building blocks for Atlanta and not subject to the vagaries of funding," said Jackson, adding that the city may want to do "something analogous to what DeKalb has done" under the leadership of Chief Executive Vernon Jones.

Walking around the Intrenchment Creek with Marilyn Boyd Drew, director of DeKalb's Parks & Recreation Department, Jackson spoke of the possibilities of connecting a chain of parks throughout the area inside I-285.

"Everywhere I go," Jackson said, "I'm struck by the conversation of connectivity, paths, green space, parks and the potential of the Belt Line," a proposed transit loop around the city. "It's all just coming together."

The combination of Franklin and Jackson could powerful in creating that city of parks and trees we so need.

The effort must be embraced by companies, other foundations, nonprofit organizations, neighborhood groups and every government level --- city, county, state and federal.

Yet leadership and vision are key. Both the mayor and the Blank Foundation give reason for hope that we are on the right track to bringing back "magic" to the city.

"Parks provide that sense of community," Jackson said. "They are a convening space, the playground for democracy. A viable Atlanta needs to provide parks and green space in its future. This has to become part of the DNA of this region."