Name: Sights, Symbols, and Stories General Tour
Start: 2024-04-27T14:00:00-04:00
End: 2024-04-27T15:30:00-04:00
Location: Oakland Cemetery

Oakland Visitor Center

A new Visitor Center outside Oakland’s gates will provide welcoming spaces for enhanced educational and public programming at the Cemetery. The new building—a block from the King Memorial MARTA station—will serve as a welcoming “front door” to Atlanta’s historic Oakland Cemetery.

Historic Oakland Foundation is redeveloping two lots outside Oakland’s main gate on Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive into a new Visitor Center with a greenspace plaza and flexible outdoor programmatic space. Beyond expanding the Foundation’s ability to share Oakland Cemetery with the public and generating new revenue to be reinvested into the Foundation’s mission, the new building will also connect the Cemetery to the Memorial Drive Greenway, the linear park that begins at Oakland’s main gate and extends along Memorial Drive all the way to the State Capitol.

Construction on the Oakland Cemetery Visitor Center began in September 2023.

If you have questions or would like to discuss how to honor your loved ones with a legacy gift in support of the Visitor Center please contact Executive Director Richard Harker at rharker@oaklandcemetery.com.

Project Status

Total Cost: $7,700,000

The Building and Grounds

Aesthetically, the new Visitor Center will pay homage to the red brick of Oakland’s defining walls and walkways. Large glass entryways and windows will provide a modern contrast to the brick and give this building gravitas befitting the importance of the Cemetery and of the Foundation to the city.

At 10,000 square feet, the new building, designed by Smith Dalia Architects, will include:

Retail Space: 1,000 square feet for a new gift shop, including retail office and storage
Common Area Space: 3,000 square feet including atrium, interpretive space, and public restrooms
Event Space: 3,000 square feet with a catering kitchen and built-in AV systems
Office Space: space for staff offices along with conference rooms and meeting space

The grounds will include a welcome plaza, event lawn, woodland walk, bioretention gardens, parking, and bike racks

Sustainability

Placing environmental sustainability and equity at the center of the design process, Historic Oakland Foundation has worked with Southface Institute to have the building EarthCraft certified upon completion and make the building net zero (producing more energy than it consumes.)

In partnering with the Lifecycle Building Center, significant salvaged materials, including tiles from the recently shuttered historic Nabisco Factory in Sylvan Hills, will be used in the project.

Additionally, support from the Coca-Cola Foundation is making possible the creation of bioretention gardens for the site’s stormwater that are anticipated to navigate over one million gallons of stormwater a year out of the municipal system.