A corner of the parking lot at H.E. Holmes MARTA Station has been turned into a soccer pitch, giving Westside Atlanta families a new, free place for kids to play right off the transit line. MARTA and the nonprofit Soccer in the Streets celebrated the grand opening of the field on October 21, marking the seventh StationSoccer pitch built near a MARTA hub.
The project converts underutilized rail-station property into a venue for play and youth development, according to Rough Draft Atlanta. The two mini-pitches sit in a corner of the station's parking area near Invest Atlanta's i-Village, as reported by Urbanize Atlanta, at a station where roughly 22,000 patrons ride MARTA bus and rail service every day.
MARTA General Manager and CEO Jonathan Hunt said the agency has a continuing commitment to connect communities, and that the field has transformed part of a parking lot into a space for neighborhood pride, wellness and youth empowerment, per Rough Draft Atlanta. Students from Young Middle School, a partner site for Soccer in the Streets, attended the event to celebrate and help launch the project in their community.
Free Access for 200 Young Players
The H.E. Holmes site is designed to provide free youth programming for roughly 200 players, according to Urbanize Atlanta, and is scheduled to serve the 2027 StationSoccer season, per Rough Draft Atlanta. Soccer in the Streets Executive Director Kaseem Ladipo said the seventh field advances the mission to expand youth soccer access across metro Atlanta and helps develop teamwork, resilience and social-emotional skills.
Soccer in the Streets places its fields inside or adjacent to stations so children can travel by MARTA to practices and league matches, removing both cost and distance as barriers to the sport. As the nonprofit's team put it to WABE, the goal is to “provide free access to quality coaching and quality programming,” since “the other barrier is geographic.” Founded in 1989, the organization runs community-based soccer and Social and Emotional Learning programming, according to a Soccer in the Streets press release.
A World Cup Legacy Project With Deep Roots
The new pitch is the only StationSoccer site designated as Atlanta's FIFA World Cup legacy project, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It joins East Lake, East Point, Five Points, Lindbergh, Kensington and West End stations as part of the League of Stations network, the paper reports. MARTA and Soccer in the Streets launched the field a decade after opening the world's first transit-station pitch at Five Points in 2016, per their press release.
That original Five Points field was described at the time as the first soccer field built inside the perimeter of a major urban transit station anywhere in the world, according to Atlanta United FC, whose announcement noted that programming would include mentoring, employability initiatives for young people, and adult leagues. StationSoccer's founding partners include Soccer in the Streets, MARTA, Atlanta United FC and the City of Atlanta, while the H.E. Holmes project specifically drew support from Atlanta FIFA 26 host city supporters, Amazon, Georgia Power, Invest Atlanta, Dick's Sporting Goods, LISC, FieldTurf and HKS.
Funding Tied to Broader Westside Redevelopment
Part of the H.E. Holmes project's funding came through Invest Atlanta's Westside Tax Allocation District community development initiative, according to Rough Draft Atlanta. The field is also part of a much larger, 22-acre redevelopment planned for the station site that includes housing and retail, Urbanize Atlanta reports. Developers hope the H.E. Holmes project will spur development of fields at three other MARTA stations that officials want included in the league, according to the AJC.
Additional StationSoccer pitches are already in the works at Doraville, Bankhead and Civic Center stations, per Urbanize Atlanta's reporting. With the World Cup coming to Atlanta in 2026, Soccer in the Streets has said it aims to have at least 10 fields near MARTA stations by then, according to WSB Radio.
Beyond the Field: Adult Leagues and Recycled Kits
Soccer in the Streets' adult programs already operate at six StationSoccer locations and include more than 6,000 members across 10 leagues and hundreds of teams, according to the nonprofit's press release. Revenue generated from those adult programs directly funds the organization's free youth offerings, the release states. The nonprofit has also said it will place a dozen recycling bins across its fields to collect old jerseys, which will be turned into new youth team kits made from recycled plastic, an effort it expects will keep five to six tons of waste out of landfills over three years.
