MARTA officials say they’re looking for ways to maintain street access to Five Points station even as they move ahead with plans to renovate the downtown transit hub.
The agency considered wide underground tunnels to the concourse to hasten hub access during the estimated two-year demolition, which may limit construction to late nighttime hours if implemented.
“That’s going to make this project go even longer, but it also interrupts the neighborhoods that are there,” Chief Capital Officer Carrie Rocha said. “So all of these things have big trade-offs, and we recognize this is going to be a period of disruption.”
Rocha went on, “But until we get into the deconstruction and demolition portions, I can’t put a fine point on the end date.”
The tunnel proposals follow calls from Mayor Andre Dickens and the Atlanta City Council to postpone the project. In a letter last week, Dickens asked MARTA CEO Collie Greenwood to delay renovations until a final audit of the agency’s Atlanta expansion fund is completed. He cited preliminary findings that suggest MARTA could owe nearly $70 million to the fund.
These calls to halt construction have yet to convince the agency, as MARTA disputed the audit’s findings on Monday and told Dickens in a letter the agency owes closer to $9 million. The final audit is expected late next month.
Before there is a clear end to construction, MARTA remains steadfast in its plans to notify city commuters about closing the Five Points station. The agency will maintain that effort through August and plans to make a travel training program available for riders to use the transit system on practice trips ahead of the hub’s closure.
The agency began a six-week effort Thursday to notify riders about pedestrian and bus route access closures. MARTA also intends to line Five Points and other stations with signage, wayfinding guides and videos about alternate routes in preparation for the hub’s renovation starting July 29.
“I think that at this point, what matters most to us is getting this project underway with the support of the city and the mayor,” Chief of Staff Melissa Mullinex said at Thursday’s MARTA board meeting. “And so we’re going to keep looking for ways for improvement and we are looking forward to this meeting with them and leadership team of the city next week.”
The Five Points renovations would replace the concrete canopy with a translucent cover, and add green space and street-level bus bays. The project is expected to end in 2028, with plans to temporarily reopen street access to the Five Points station during the 2026 World Cup soccer tournament.
The $230 million project would primarily be paid for by a half-penny sales tax that Atlanta voters approved in 2016 to expand transit. The rest of the project would be funded by a $25 million federal grant and $13.8 million in state funding.
“I think our No. 1 issue here going forward is in the near term,” MARTA Secretary Al Pond said. “Until we get through demolition, we better do a little bit better job of explaining to the general public why this project has the timeline that it could have and how complicated it is.”
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