As Gov. Nathan Deal stood before reporters in his Capitol office the morning after winning a second term, workers across the street raced the clock to turn land that once housed a dangerous old parking deck into a park fit for a gubernatorial inaugural.
“We look forward to having the inaugural in the new plaza,” an optimistic governor told reporters that day. “I believe it will be one of those memorable events, and certainly it will be memorable to see the new plaza.”
It will likewise be a memorable day for the Georgia Building Authority, which has been trying for decades to create green space and a safe place to hold events around the Capitol.
In the months preceding the election, it was hard to envision Liberty Plaza getting done, as planned, before the General Assembly reconvenes Jan. 12. But with trees being planted and stones for the amphitheater being put in, the Capitol’s new “Front Door” has taken shape, and GBA director Steve Stancil is promising it will be done in time for Deal’s inaugural, even if he has to take a few turns pouring concrete himself.
“They’ve got a lot of work to do if they’re going to get it done,” said George Hooks, a former state senator who lobbies for historic preservation groups.
Liberty Plaza is one of several projects in the state's plan to remake Capitol Hill that are due to be finished at the end of the year or around the time the General Assembly returns. They include:
- The $1.5 million replacement of the steps at the old "Front Door" of the Capitol, on the Washington Street side, where the statue of one-time populist-turned-white supremacist Tom Watson used to stand. Watson's statue has been moved across the street, facing away from the statehouse, in an area favored by the homeless.
- A $200,000 accessibility ramp for those in wheelchairs and others in the Coverdell Legislative Office Building, the building where many legislators are housed and where many committee meetings are held.
- A $12 million gutting and rehabbing of the Great Depression-era Department of Transportation building at the corner of Capitol Square and Capitol Avenue. The building will provide 30,000 square feet of office space for the governor's budget office.
For decades many inaugurations — and most protests and rallies, took place on the Washington Street steps. Events often spilled out into the street, causing police to either block it off or close lanes. Some lawmakers and activists didn’t relish the idea of always having to hold events under the statue of the segregationist Watson. Building authority officials called the situation dangerous.
Meanwhile, on the other side of statehouse sat a 60-year-old parking deck that officials called a potential hazard.
Unlike in many other states, Georgia’s Capitol is hemmed in on all sides by buildings and busy streets with little in the way of green space. It is a block off the downtown connector, and there is almost no room to expand without building a bridge over the connector or buying or using land that is now used as parking lots near Turner Field.
Little has changed on Capitol Hill since the Sloppy Floyd Building — known as the Twin Towers — was completed in 1980, besides the construction of a new parking deck that is not available for public use.
The idea for something like Liberty Plaza, an area where the public could gather, where rallies, protests and special events like inaugurations could be held, had been on the drawing board for more than 100 years. A color rendering from 1910 shows a grand, tree-lined boulevard approaching the Capitol with the caption, “A Dream of the Heart of Atlanta, Ga., The Half Million City.”
Deal, a former state senator and congressman before becoming governor, quickly got behind the plans for the plaza once they were brought to him.
“The governor has been supportive of and dedicated to this project since its inception,” said Jen Talaber, spokeswoman for Deal. “The governor believes the public should have a safe place to assemble, engage in discussion and debate public policies.”
The building authority has, in the past, had a hard time getting legislators to chip in money for Capitol projects. Lawmakers get more political mileage out of spending on new roads or college buildings in their own districts. But the building authority got the $4.4 million needed for the project from the sale of unneeded buildings, not the state budget, so it never had to be voted on by lawmakers.
Crews began tearing down the parking deck — built in the mid-1950s — in the spring, and a precast concrete wall along Martin Luther King Jr. Drive with the name "Liberty Plaza" went up after the debris was removed.
When completed, the plaza will include a grass center surrounded by pavement and speaking areas. It will include replicas of the Liberty Bell — given to the state in the 1950s by the Truman Administration — and Statue of Liberty, donated by the Atlanta Council of the Boy Scouts of America in 1951. There was talk initially that a new statue of Martin Luther King Jr. would also be in the plaza, but that may wind up on the Capitol grounds instead.
Besides being a place to hold events, the plaza will give the public a more open view of the Georgia statehouse, which was dedicated in 1889.
Hooks, an amateur historian, said many state Capitols have large green spaces around their statehouses, often with rolling lawns leading up to the building.
“I think Liberty Plaza is important for the overall attractiveness of Capitol Hill,” said Hooks, who fought for historic preservation projects when he served as the state Senate’s budget chairman.
Having attended presidential inaugurations in the past, Rep. Joe Wilkinson, R-Sandy Springs, is excited about the prospect of a large-scale, outdoor swearing in at Liberty Plaza, which will be able to hold about 3,500-4,000 people.
“This should be a celebration, like you have in Washington where you have all the people in the Mall and they can be part of it,” Wilkinson said. “This is the people’s celebration.”
