Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens is seeking development partners to transform the city-owned and dormant Gun Club Park into a mixed-income community with green space connected to parks and trails.
Officials with the mayor’s office said Wednesday they have released a Request for Qualifications, or RFQ, to help pick partners for the development of a 44-acre site that has sat vacant for more than 20 years.
Dickens’ office said the city plans to offer both affordable single-family homes and rental units in the community. The development is northwest of Westside Reservoir Park and the Proctor Creek Trail, and is part of a “trail-oriented development” strategy to connect communities to the rest of the city through a trail network, the mayor’s office said.
Gun Club Park, located on Alvin Drive, intersects with Atlanta’s West Highlands, Grove Park and Almond Park neighborhoods, according to the Atlanta Urban Development Corp. It lost its status as a public park in 2004.
Now undeveloped woodland, the city’s plan would preserve 40% of the tree canopy and specimen trees.
Dickens said the project will include 200 units of affordable housing as part of his goal to build or preserve 20,000 affordable housing units by 2030. The development is a 15-minute drive from Midtown Atlanta, Atlantic Station and Georgia Tech, according to the RFQ.
“Announcing this RFQ is a significant step in our extensive community planning initiative, aimed at bringing new families and facilities to this key area of the Westside,” Dickens said in a statement.
Credit: Atlanta Urban Development Corporation
Credit: Atlanta Urban Development Corporation
The Atlanta Urban Development Corp. President and CEO John Majors said the project would embody a “transformative development for Atlanta’s Westside” catering to large families “across the income spectrum.”
According to the mayor’s office, the project calls for 40% of rental units to be set aside for households at 50% and 80% of the Area Median Income. A quarter of units for homeowners will be affordable.
For a four-person household, 50% AMI amounts to an income limit of $53,750 a year, according to 2024 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development data for the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell area. The income limit for a four-person household at 80% AMI is $86,000.
Gun Club Park was established as a shooting range in 1928 and used for that purpose until 1957. Concerns were raised about the environmental impact of the small lead balls used as projectiles in guns.
A 2022 environmental report found the metals beryllium, chromium, copper, lead, mercury, nickel, selenium and zinc in soil samples, but the report suggested the levels were negligible and did not warrant further investigation or cleanup.
The city turned it into a public park in 1964 with baseball fields and basketball courts, but closed it in 1996 because of “disuse and crime,” according to an August 2024 report by the city’s Housing Innovation Lab.
Atlanta Urban Development Corp. said that since the 1990s the site has been “severely under-activated, resulting in regular dumping and a fracture in the connectivity of the city’s westside neighborhoods.”
According to the city’s Housing Innovation Lab, in 1974 the site officially became a municipal landfill.
“Only 110 acres were officially licensed for waste dumping activities. Gun Club Park processed 890 tons of waste daily … Residents successfully advocated for closure in December 1992,” the report states.
The park was plagued with illegal dumping, with toxic pollution seeping into the nearby Proctor Creek, according to the report.
“Despite the site’s history of dumping, an environmental review conducted in spring 2024 found only $5,000 in environmental remediation costs associated with the entire 44.1-acre site,” the RFQ states.
The mayor’s office said the RFQ is open now and that responses are due by Feb. 14. Atlanta Urban Development Corp. will then review the submissions and narrow down development partners.
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