The friends group for a new park at Loridans Drive and Ga. 400 in North Buckhead, on the Sandy Springs border, will hold its first business meeting on April 16. The public is invited to attend, especially those interested in volunteering.
The meeting will begin at 5:30 p.m. in Room 305/309 at St. James United Methodist Church, 4400 Peachtree-Dunwoody Road.
The 1.5-acre Loridans Greenspace, currently a wooded lot, has a design developed last year in a series of community meetings in collaboration with the nonprofit group Park Pride. The city owns the property, but does not fund the design or construction of such neighborhood parks. Instead, residents are expected to come up with a vision and form a nonprofit to hire someone to design and build it, often in stages. That is the work the new Friends of Loridans Park will do.
The design packs a variety of uses into the relatively small space, including nature trails, a children’s play area, a lawn and a small entrance plaza. The PATH400 multiuse trail eventually will be built through the park as well. Another feature is a historic cemetery, dating to roughly 170 years ago, that will be fenced in, with the additions of a plaque about its historic significance and blank headstones erected on its largely unmarked graves.