Centennial Place/Luckie-Marietta Urban Lab

The Centennial Place and Luckie-Marietta Urban Lab was held on March 2 and 3, 2010 thanks to the support of The Coca-Cola Company and Atlanta City Council President Ceasar C. Mitchell.

Sustainability, livability, community health were the hot topics when The Coca-Cola Company hosted the Centennial Place and Luckie-Marietta Urban Lab at the company’s worldwide headquarters. The Coca-Cola Company has a vested interest in the core urban lab topics, whether they are talking water quality in the regions where their products are created or health and wellness in the worldwide communities where their employees and customers live. As a leader in Atlanta’s business community since their founding, Coca-Cola has been committed to contributing to the quality of life of our community and our region. While true wherever they do business in the world, it certainly starts with the place they call home.

The Centennial Place and Luckie-Marietta Urban Lab study area is located in the northwest corner of Downtown Atlanta. The area is home not only to the worldwide headquarters campus of The Coca-Cola Company, but is also the site of the nation’s first conversion of a traditional and failing public housing complex (Techwood Homes) into a mixed-use and mixed-income community (Centennial Place) that became the model for HUD’s Hope IV program. Today, the Centennial Place neighborhood includes housing for nearby Georgia Tech and supportive retail for the City’s attraction district surrounding Centennial Olympic Park. Branded and marketed as a ‘strollable city experience,” the Luckie-Marietta district is home to 20 restaurants, 12 world-class attractions and 5 hotels.

What is an Urban Lab?

The ‘Urban Lab’ program of the Congress for the New Urbanism is designed to advance the design and development of healthy places. During an Urban Lab, a hand-picked team of invited new urbanist designers and other experts from the fields of public health, policy, transportation and sustainability provide key suggestions, advice and even sketch alternatives as a peer review of existing plans and projects.

During the Centennial Place and Luckie-Marietta Urban Lab participants were charged to discuss and find solutions for the following challenges:

What are the necessary strategies to densify livable corridors, transit centers, public spaces and walkability to create a 20-minute neighborhood?
How do you inspire a transformation into a more user friendly community with a broad array of choices for shopping, living, and working?
What are the opportunities for improving cycling access within the district and between MARTA Stations and the Beltline
Where are the nodes in the district and what are the ‘placemaking’ vision for these important public spaces?
How can the district better manage and conserve water and energy?
How can the district envision a sustainable urban future including strategies for urban reforestation, transfer of development rights, landbanking, and preservation areas for urban gardens?