ATLANTA -- MARTA is planning to build a soccer field on top of its busiest rail transit station. And it's just one of a half dozen projects the transit system is planning. Its board approved another one this week.
The newest project is also the system's most ambitious. MARTA is planning to build four office towers at the Arts Center station in Midtown. It's consistent with most but not all of the other projects
The Five Points MARTA station is the system's busiest. It also has a roof that's accessible when it isn't gated off. This is where MARTA proposes to build a soccer field – not quite regulation size, but playable by broadminded soccer players.
"We could kick it up there," mused Joui Vii, a MARTA patron at Five Points Friday, after learning of the soccer plan.
Work has already begun to build a mixed use development in what had been a parking lot at the Edgewood Candler Park rail station. MARTA has produced renderings of the planned development here -- and for mixed use developments at its rail stations at Brookhaven, Chamblee, King Memorial and Avondale. For MARTA, the idea is to put up living space -- and jobs and retail – that would drive patrons into the system's rail transit stations. It appeals to those communities too.
"It just brings density around the station and it gets cars off the street. And from a regional sense that's a good thing," said Jonathan Elmore, mayor of Avondale Estates.
The soccer field atop the Five Points station is the curiosity of the group. That project will include a community garden in addition to the soccer facility. Vii suggested shifting the idea. "I don't know too many people that do soccer out here. I'd say put up a basketball court," Vii said. "Got a lot of ballers in the city."
MARTA says developers are paying for the construction while MARTA and other entities pay for infrastructure improvements.
