NEW— choose your ticket type! Join us for the full weekend ($325) or customize your experience by mixing and matching dinner and individual tour tickets ($50).
The Olmsted Network is heading down south on April 4-6, and you are invited to join us for three days of food, fun and educational tours.
Friday, April 4:
Pop-Up Atlanta will begin on Friday at 6 pm with dinner at Mary Mac’s Tea Room. Known as Atlanta’s Dining Room, Mary Mac’s has famously served up classic Southern cooking and hospitality since 1945. Dinner will include a buffet of Southern staples, a brief presentation on Atlanta’s Olmsted heritage and the chance to mingle with landscape and park professionals from across Atlanta and the country.
Saturday, April 5:
On Saturday morning, the group will see firsthand how Atlanta continues to champion Olmsted’s vision of “parks for all people” through projects like the Atlanta Beltline, a 22-mile railroad corridor that has been redeveloped into a series of parks and trails. We’ll take a 1.3 mile stroll down the vibrant Eastside Trail, from Ponce City Market to Krog Street Market, and learn about its design and construction from Kevin W. Burke, FASLA. As Director of Design for Atlanta Beltline, Inc., Burke brings over 40 years of experience as a landscape architect and 17 years of experience with the innovative project. The tour will end at Krog Street Market.
After a brief stop at the market, full-event attendees will board a tour bus and head to Druid Hills— Olmsted’s last suburb— for a glimpse into Olmsted Linear Park with Spencer Tunnell II, the founder and owner of Atlanta-based Tunnell & Tunnell Landscape Architecture and co-author of Olmsted’s Linear Park. Sandra Kruger, the executive director of Olmsted Linear Park Alliance, will also join us to answer questions about ongoing park efforts and the successful fight to save the neighborhood from a freeway in the 1990s. Our final stop on the tour will be the park’s annual Spring Festival on Ponce.
After sampling the festival food trucks, the full group will be swept off to Grant Park for a tour with Skyler Edwards of Grant Park Conservancy. Next, full-event attendees will stop in for a brief tour of the LP Grant Mansion with the Atlanta Preservation Center. The day will end with dinner and shopping at the iconic Ponce City Market.
Sunday, April 6:
On Sunday morning at 9 am ET, we’ll meet Doug Widner, the executive director at Piedmont Park Conservancy, for a tour of Piedmont Park. With its stunning views of the Midtown skyline, Piedmont Park offers 200+ acres of public greenspace and welcomes 6 million visitors and hosts hundreds of events each year. Doug will tour us through the space and answering questions about the ongoing comprehensive planning process.
Tickets for the full event are $325 and include dinner at Mary Mac’s Tea Room, transportation on Saturday, five expert-led tours and a goodie bag. Tickets for the dinner ($50) and individual tours ($50) will only cover the specified event and do not include transportation to/from.
Registration closes on April 1. Space is limited, though, so please secure your spot ASAP. For questions, feel free to email us at press@olmsted.org.
Travel Information:
If you are joining us from out of town, the Olmsted Network has secured a room block at the Wylie Hotel at 551 Ponce De Leon Ave NE. We recommends that you stay at (or at least near!) the hotel so that you can easily participate in all of the activities. You can secure our special room rate of $232 per night by booking through this link by March 21.
Flying into Atlanta is easy! Once you get to the airport, you can take a rideshare service— like Lyft— from the airport to the hotel. Or, you can take a MARTA train into Midtown and then a MARTA bus or rideshare service from Midtown to the hotel. Please note that the airport is about 20 minutes away from the city. Learn more.
LA CES:
The Olmsted Network is a LA CES™ approved provider, and this course has been approved for 5 PDH, LA CES/HSW. Attendees will be responsible for completing a learning outcomes survey in order to receive credit and a certificate.