New NYO Parking Concepts Proposed at CPCA Meeting

NYO Parking Proposal Layout

Monday night I attended the Chastain Park Civic Association meeting at the Chastain Horse Park.  It was a significant meeting where new parking concepts were proposed for NYO (Northside Youth Organization), and we learned about a new 21 acre development that is being pitched for the property at the corner of Roswell Road and West Wieuca Rd, and an update on how the new playground project is coming along.  I’ll start out with the NYO parking concepts.  Come back for more information about the 21 acre development and the playground.

Bill Harrison of Harrison Design Associates was on hand to lay out the plans for several parking solutions that would greatly relieve stress on West Wieuca Rd which we all know becomes a parking lot during sports seasons.  Recently a child and an adult were hit by cars on West Wieuca, so something has to change.

The first proposal was a “back road concept” which would be a one way road leading from the current NYO parking lot down below the lower football field and out onto Lake Forest where the existing gravel parking lot exits.  This back road would add 157 new parking spaces.  As you can imagine everyone questioned how all of that traffic could effectively exit onto Lake Forest without causing another traffic headache.  One of the ideas was to have a 3 way stop there so during heavy periods of traffic it would not be hard to exit.  Who would pay for it you ask?  NYO would finance this project exclusively.

The second proposal was a 3 story parking deck in the gulch that would feed out to the back road concept explained above.  The gulch is the sunken gravel area between North Fulton Golf Course and the NYO Gym.  The parking deck when complete would be only slightly higher than current grade of West Wieuca and would provide a plaza area for people to enjoy.  The parking deck would provide an additional 340 parking spaces.  In this scenario the existing “upper parking lot” would continue to feed out onto West Wieuca.

The third proposal was a 1 level parking deck under the current lower football field.  The top of the deck would be turf grass and would continue to serve as a football field.  This option would provide 200 new parking spaces in addition to the 157 new spaces in the back road concept, and the gulch would remain the same as it is now.

All of the proposed plans have a similar end goal and that is to relieve congestion on West Wieuca.  In addition the south side of West Wieuca would have no street parking and would be reworked to widen the pedestrian PATH and create a green space between the PATH and street.

And who will pay for these major projects?  NYO is running a capital campaign to raise private money for these projects, but would also use funds from the Chastain Park Amphitheater that are set aside for “park improvements”.  They also discussed issuing bonds to help pay for the construction which would run about $4,000,000 for the 3 story parking deck.  Those bonds would be paid back by making the parking deck a “pay to park” system.  All other parking would remain free.

Of course questions were raised about the size of NYO and why they continued to grow while such problems exist.  NYO officials were on hand and explained that while NYO has more than doubled in size since 2002, it’s park presence has been at capacity for some time.  As NYO grows, they do so outside of Chastain Park at area schools and churches such as Buckhead Baptist Church, St John United Methodist Church, and W.T. Jackson Elementary.  All of those facilities have ball fields that are used by NYO for both practices and games.

Personally I am in favor of the new parking deck in the gulch.  Traffic is ridiculous on West Wieuca and this would be a real solution that would finally solve the problem and would not be an eyesore.  The gulch is an eyesore and as you have seen in Piedmont Park, when done right it can thoughtfully blend into the surroundings.

Please leave your comments here.

–Carson Matthews