Atlanta’s long-promised Lower Paul Park is finally moving beyond neighborhood advocacy and into the nuts and bolts of park construction, with trail funding now supporting design work, cost estimates, and early construction documents. The bulldozers are not there yet, but the project is no longer sitting still.
The planned nine-acre park in Riverside would bring new recreation areas, walking paths, flood-control landscaping, and river access to more than 4,000 nearby residents. The latest progress follows the city’s 2022 purchase of 17 greenspace properties, a milestone detailed by Urbanize Atlanta.
Funding Is Turning A Park Vision Into A Work Plan
Atlanta officials described the acquisition as the foundation for a future public park along the Chattahoochee, after years of community advocacy in the Riverside neighborhood. A city announcement said the property was acquired to create a park designed for direct access to the river and expanded public greenspace.
The immediate boost is coming through Norfolk Southern’s Trail Activation Fund, which supports early-stage trail projects around the country. In a company report, Norfolk Southern said its contributions to Trust for Public Land had reached $950,000 since 2022, with Atlanta among the communities receiving planning and engagement support.
Trust for Public Land is using the funding to develop a survey-based design with local partners, prepare construction documents, and assemble a preliminary construction budget. The design is expected to reflect priorities from a 2022 community visioning process led by Park Pride, which included months of neighborhood input.
Lower Paul Park Is One Piece Of A Much Bigger River Plan
The park is part of Chattahoochee RiverLands, a regional effort aiming to connect communities from Buford Dam in Gwinnett County to Chattahoochee Bend State Park in Coweta County. The long-range concept calls for a 125-mile multimodal trail system, with Lower Paul serving as a neighborhood-scale gateway to that larger network, according to Chattahoochee RiverLands.
The broader RiverLands vision is already producing completed trail segments elsewhere in the metro area. Hoodline reported on the opening of a 0.6-mile Cobb County section with a paved shared-use path, wetland bridge, and river overlook, offering a preview of what the regional effort can eventually deliver.
For Riverside, the next major steps are less glamorous but crucial: finishing the design, pricing the work, and lining up the money to build it. Fundraising for Lower Paul Park is expected to begin in 2027, while project leaders caution that the park remains in the early stages of development, Urbanize Atlanta reported.
