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Fort McPherson Redevelopment Details
Editor's Note: In the September issue of Atlanta INtown, Ann Taylor Boutwell continued her series on the city's most endangered places designated by the Atlanta Preservation Center. After the issue came out, a meeting to outline the plans for the future of the closing base were released. Here's an update.
State and local officials have outlined the future re-use of the Fort McPherson property located in Southwest Atlanta.
Following a meeting of the McPherson Planning Local Redevelopment Authority (MPLRA) on Sept. 8, Gov. Sonny Perdue announced that as part of the MPLRA proposal to the Army for the redevelopment of the Fort McPherson property, the state of Georgia has asked the Army to convey, at no cost, an approximately 115-acre parcel of the Fort McPherson property to create a scientific research park.
“The creation of a scientific research park in Georgia will provide significant economic development for the state of Georgia for decades to come,” Perdue said.
According to state and local officials, the state’s commitment to develop a portion of the Fort McPherson site as a scientific research park will drastically enhance the value of the remaining parcels of the Fort McPherson site to be sold by the Army, justifying the state’s receipt of the research site parcel for no cost.
If approved by the Army, the research park will be developed by a task force including the Board of Regents, local governmental entities and private partners. The research park will be developed as an urban mixed-use work/live/learn/play science and research park for interdisciplinary research and technology transfer in partnership with Georgia research institutions and private partners. The Centers for Disease Control have expressed interest in participating in the exploratory discussions regarding a research park at Fort McPherson that could include the CDC and other Georgia academic and health institutions.
The concept is based on other successful research parks, such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Princeton Forrestal Center in Princeton, New Jersey and the Research Triangle Park in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina.
The 487-acre Fort McPherson is being closed under the federal government’s Base Realignment and Closure Act (BRAC) of 2005 and will be vacated by the U.S. Army in 2011.
The MPLRA, created by the city of Atlanta to oversee the re-use planning process, approved its final draft redevelopment land-use proposal for submission to the U.S. Army and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. It will be formally submitted by Sept. 22 for review and assessment by federal authorities under their process and transfer regulations for base closures.
The plan calls for rezoning by the city of Atlanta and a partnership with private developers, the state of Georgia and the city of East Point to create 150 acres of green space, with 30 acres set aside for a festival and event grounds. The future site may also feature 4,600 homes, four million square feet of office space and 400,000 square feet of retail and commercial space. A high density, mixed-use retail district would be created along Lee Street inside the Fort property to create a "main street" atmosphere. A historic district of approximately 40 acres would preserve the base's historic structures.
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