Westside Reservoir Park facts for kids

Westside Park at Bellwood Quarry is a new park being built in Atlanta, Georgia. It's located where an old rock quarry used to be. The park is near the neighborhoods of Bankhead, West Midtown, and Grove Park.

This park is a big part of the Atlanta BeltLine plan. The BeltLine is a project to create a ring of parks, trails, and transit around Atlanta. Westside Park will connect to the BeltLine trails and the Proctor Creek Greenway Trail. In 2019, the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation gave $17.5 million to help build the park. This money helps speed up the creation of parks and trails, especially on Atlanta's west side.

About Westside Park

Westside Park is a huge green space for everyone to enjoy. It's almost twice the size of Piedmont Park, which is another famous park in Atlanta. This new park will have a large lake that will also be used as a drinking water source for the city.

How the Park Started

The land for the park used to be owned by Fulton County. It was leased to a company called Vulcan Materials. In 2005, Atlanta's mayor, Shirley Franklin, announced a plan to buy the land. The goal was to create a 351-acre park with a 45-acre lake. This plan was part of the larger BeltLine project.

In 2017, Mayor Kasim Reed shared the plans for the first part of the park's construction. This first phase was expected to take about two years to finish. It cost around $26.5 million. Phase one includes a main entrance, a great view of the quarry and the Atlanta skyline, and paths connecting to the Proctor Creek Greenway.

In 2018, a special event marked the official start of building Westside Reservoir Park. Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and others celebrated the park as a new attraction. They also hoped it would bring new life and jobs to the west side of the city. This area used to be mostly industrial and has many neighborhoods with lower incomes. The idea of the park has led to new homes and businesses being built nearby. Some people in the Grove Park neighborhood worried that these changes might make living there too expensive for current residents.

The first part of the park, costing $26.5 million, includes a new entrance on Johnson Road. It also adds new lights and improvements for people walking and biking. Phase 1 of the park was planned to open in the spring of 2020.

Bellwood Quarry's History

The Bellwood Quarry was a granite quarry, which means it was a place where rocks were dug out of the ground. It stopped operating in 2007. Before it became a park, the quarry was a popular spot for local teenagers to hang out.

Filming Location

The quarry has also been used as a filming location for several popular TV shows and movies:

• In 2010, it was used for the AMC series The Walking Dead.
• It appeared in season four, episode 14 of The Vampire Diaries.
• A scene in Mockingjay Part 1 was filmed there.
• The final scene of The Fundamentals of Caring was also shot at the quarry.
• Most recently, in 2016, it was a very important location in several episodes of the Netflix series Stranger Things.

While the reservoir and park were being built, the area was closed to the public for safety. A five-mile tunnel was dug to bring water to the reservoir, and it started filling up with water in April 2020.

Images for kids

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  A portion of Phase 1 of Atlanta's Westside Park as seen in February, 2020. Facing North.

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  May 2018, dense woods cover the area of what is slated to be developed during Phase 1 of Atlanta's Westside Park. Facing North.

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  Bellwood Quarry, as seen in 2018 with construction of the reservoir and related infrastructure. Facing East.

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  Bellwood Quarry, as seen from the observation deck on the northwest side

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  Looking west, the border to the Quarry itself is to the left of a field

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  Another large field farther north of the Quarry