The Atlanta & West Point RR Depot on Memorial Drive may become a restaurant. (Photo by LeAnn Shaw)

Ryan Gravel hopped out of his black Toyota truck to be a narrating passenger for a recent tour of the BeltLine. Even though it was a week before the City Council’s November vote approving (12 to 3) the special tax allocation district, his enthusiasm – if not optimism – was clear.

Gravel, in case you’ve been hiding out in the Krog Street tunnel, is the guy who came up with the idea of using the 22 miles of mostly abandoned track circling the city to create a BeltLine connecting INtown communities.

Now, at 33, he is a city planner/architect working full time for the BeltLine Partnership, which hopes to make his thesis a reality. Two other cities – Minneapolis and St. Louis – have similar rails-and-trails efforts afoot. (See related article, page 44.)

Although he’s hiked parts of the BeltLine dozens of times and done the driving tour several dozens of times, his energy and excitement remain fresh for much of the tour. The self-described "nerd" for railroads ("I’ve always tried to live near a railroad ever since I was a student at Georgia Tech"), maps and Atlanta history, even hiked the whole BeltLine in one day.

When we set out, it was one of those October afternoons when the sky is bluer than any other time of the year. And we were ahead of the late afternoon traffic that can clog each quadrant of the city.

"It’s clear the city is growing, with or without the BeltLine," he said. "There will be a gold rush for developers if it passes." The project still faces hurdles in the Fulton County Commission and the Atlanta School Board.

While the most predominant feature along the tracks seems to be kudzu, there are clearly those sites Gravel has a special affinity for. Here are a dozen of his favorites:

Carver’s Country Kitchen, 1118 West Marietta St., (404) 794-4410 is becoming a trendy lunch spot just past King Plow and on the fringe of the Howell Station neighborhood. Gravel said he likes the meatloaf, collards and mashed potatoes of the part restaurant-part grocery.

Tanyard Creek at Collier and Walthall roads in Collier Hills is one "beautiful" park with "disgusting" water in the creek running through it. "The BeltLine going through that area would bring some attention to it and maybe fix it," Gravel said. The 14.5-acre park has historic markers and hosts neighborhood ball games, picnics and walkers.

Washington Park: What Gravel likes about this spot (bordered by Ashby and Simpson streets and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard) is how it "blends together a lot of different concepts of the BeltLine: MARTA goes underneath; there is new development with nice housing along one side of the park, but it’s in a neighborhood that could use other revitalization.... And it’s an area that a lot of people are not familiar with." The park was built in 1919 and was the first built for African-Americans. It started out as 6.5 acres but grew to 25 when completed in 1928.

The Krog Street Tunnel, leading into Cabbagetown, doesn’t appeal to everyone, Gravel said, but added: "I like it because it’s ugly and dark and it looks scary, but when you walk through it it’s not nearly as scary. Those kinds of things are what make a neighborhood recognizable." Gravel said the BeltLine could end up going right over the tunnel.

Excelsior Mill: The home of the old Masquerade is one of Atlanta’s most historic structures. The City of Atlanta denied a permit to raze the building to make way for a 200-unit condo development, and the owner is now negotiating with a local restaurateur interested in preserving and renovating the mill. "If you do all that new development and tear everything down," Gravel said, "you’ve lost a lot of that historic identify of these INtown places."

Magnolia trees (historic feature) behind what was the pitchers mound at the old Atlanta Crackers Stadium. "When I was in college, I was just looking at old pictures and wishing the Cracker Stadium was still there," Gravel said. "Somebody goes out there periodically and pulls the kudzu off of the trees to keep them from being overgrown."

Westview Commercial District at the intersection of Ralph David Abernathy and Lucille Avenue features renovated storefronts, "East Atlanta 15 years ago," Gravel said. "I think it’s kind of cool because, like several of these little commercial districts, it’s not anything nice now but will be eventually."

Couer d’Allene Studios: "This is a nice, little small-scale loft development and definitely in an untried, untested industrial area," Gravel said. He especially likes the "funky" wrought iron trim.

Crogman School on West Avenue and Pittsburgh is a former high school converted to affordable housing. "This old high school, in a historically black neighborhood, had every pane of glass broken out of it when I did my project. It was totally abandoned." The Pittsburgh community has gotten a boost from the $11 million project that turned the abandoned elementary school – built about 1923 – into the 43 units (classrooms) of the Crogman School Apartments, with another 62 units in a new building nearby. The project has attracted accolades and more new development.

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