Chastain Park Conservancy is hoping to break ground in November on a $13 million campaign to revitalize 30 acres of land and open up greenspace in the park. The Palisades project will include scenic overlooks, a one-mile trail system, open spaces, a natural play area, and new connections to Nancy Creek.
Rosa McHugh, longtime President and CEO of Chastain Park Conservancy said of the Palisades, “What we’re trying to do is create a park within the park. That’s our goal, to really have this be the heartbeat of the park, where you can just go and be and enjoy and be this place for mental health, where you’re really in nature.”
Currently, the space where the Palisades are planned to be is overgrown with invasive plants like kudzu and ivy and almost entirely inaccessible on foot. McHugh wants to clear these out and replace them with native species; the installation of native flowers has already begun around the outskirts of the park. Her plan is to prioritize plants with “color and interest” so parkgoers can have new experiences in the park throughout the seasons.
The only vehicle-accessible road into the lower half of the park cuts through the Chastain Park Golf Course, which is one of the busiest public courses in Atlanta. The Palisades project will see the road moved and the current asphalt turned back into fairway green.
The Chastain Park Conservancy dubbed 2026 the “Year of Community.” One of the biggest goals of the project is to create a more accessible space for people to come together and create community in nature. “The silver lining of COVID was that people realized that they really had a love for greenspace,” McHugh said. During that time, the park worked with the city to offer parts of the golf course as greenspace, but it eventually fell apart due to the high sporting activity on the golf course. “We did have this space in the middle of the golf course that was seen as an opportunity in 2008 and so we looked at it again with the comprehensive plan process, and it looked like now was the time to get community input, and so with that we started exploring and created the plan that we have now.”
With $1 million left to raise, the Conservancy is eager to begin this project. In August, they will host their “The Gilded Trail” gala, which will raise money for the organization and potentially complete their fundraising efforts for the Palisades. McHugh said, “We’re excited, and we really want to bring this to the community and really have it be an asset.”
