Central Atlanta Progress President A.J. Robinson, who spent a chunk of his career leading global developer Portman Holdings, is touting Atlanta's progress toward constructing a park atop the interstate that runs through the city's heart.
Robinson said at a recent meeting of the civic group that advocates for developing downtown Atlanta that the project known as the Stitch resulted from dozens of design workshops, walking tours and community sessions.
The initiative is aimed at reconnecting the downtown and midtown areas of the city. It would create 14 acres of greenspace and transportation improvements on a new platform that would span the stretch of the Downtown Connector between Ted Turner Drive and Piedmont Avenue.
Central Atlanta Progress and city secured a $157 million grant last year from the U.S. Department of Transportation to build the project's first phase.
"We have a lot going on," Robinson said in an email. During the group's recent annual meeting, Robinson, pictured, honored the Hyatt Regency Atlanta by wearing a hat that is a commemorative replica of the hotel developed by the late John Portman.
"The landmark Atlanta hotel hosted Martin Luther King Jr.’s last major Civil Rights conference in August 1967, and was known as the 'Hotel of Hope' to the Civil Rights Movement," hotel spokesperson Walter Woods said in an email.