Images: Upgrades bound for beloved Cabbagetown park

As Atlanta’s most active outdoor months unfold, a historic eastside neighborhood known for good times is stepping up its parks and recreation game.

Cabbagetown has recently welcomed a functional new greenspace near its section of the Atlanta Beltline and officially kicked off work on another community-led venture at the neighborhood’s centerpiece park.

Project leaders on Tuesday hosted a formal groundbreaking for the Joyce Brookshire Memorial Amphitheater, an upgrade to a longstanding performance venue and gathering place that’s been years in the making.

Designed by Atlanta’s Martin Rickles Studio, the amphitheater will honor late Cabbagetown resident Joyce Brookshire, who migrated from Appalachia, witnessed the neighborhood’s changes firsthand, and channeled that experience into her work as a musician, poet, songwriter, and artist.

A key aspect of the revised amphitheater will be a sculptural bandshell and more accessible seating.

“Cabbagetown is growing as a micro-music hub with some incredible year-round free shows open to the public,” a project rep wrote to Urbanize Atlanta this week. “[The neighborhood] has always been a fierce protector of the arts.”

Current condition and historical context for Cabbagetown's amphitheater. Martin Rickles Studio; courtesy of Cabbagetown ATL

Plans for a new bandshell nestled among native trees with new pathways at Joyce Brookshire Memorial Amphitheater. Courtesy of Cabbagetown ATL; designs, Martin Rickles Studio

Project leaders have credited a $150,000 Park Pride grant, private donations, and support from Atlanta City Council member Liliana Bakhtiari with helping bring the concept to reality.

The amphitheater project team includes designers Martin Rickles Studio, Acustica Design, Canopy Consultants, Genesis Engineering, and Shear Structural.

Martin Rickles Studio

Martin Rickles Studio; courtesy of Cabbagetown ATL

Meanwhile, a few blocks northeast of the new amphitheater, Cabbagetown leadership has scheduled a ribbon-cutting June 23 for another new project called Krog Tunnel Pocket Park.

With its stone benches, greenery, and art, that pint-size greenspace is designed to function as a pitstop for Atlanta Beltline patrons on Cabbagetown’s side of the Krog Street Tunnel. (It could also serve as an urban buoy for PBR-hobbled revelers needing a rest while trying to find their way home.)

The Krog Tunnel Pocket Park, more seriously, aims to solve a problem: The accumulation of rentable e-scooters that were clogging the corner to the point it was off limits for anyone needing a breather.

“With the final segments of the Atlanta Beltline Southside Trail opening this month,” a project rep wrote via email this week, “Beltline walkers now have a new place to relax.”

Here's how that turned out:

How the new Beltline respite has come together along Wylie Street in Cabbagetown. Courtesy of Cabbagetown ATL