Infrastructure improvement has long been a cornerstone of the work done by Community Improvement Districts (CIDs), and while that work continues, mobility projects that build connections and improve quality of life are now sharing center stage. As one historic road construction project ends, the Perimeter, Buckhead and Alpharetta CIDs are creating new ways of moving around north metro in the form of new parks, paths and trail extensions.
When work began on the Interstate 285 at Georgia 400 interchange project around 2017, it was the largest infrastructure project ever undertaken by the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT), according to Ann Hanlon, executive director of the Perimeter CIDs. Fast forward eight years and about $800 million later, and the scope of that project is about to be eclipsed.
“2025 was big for us because it marked the completion of the 285 at Georgia 400 interchange project, but it’s like after all those years and all that money, it feels anticlimactic now, but it was huge,” says Hanlon. Perimeter CIDs are made up of the Fulton Perimeter CID in Sandy Springs and the Central DeKalb Perimeter CID. “Now as we look forward, that [project] will soon be in the rearview mirror, and we’re looking toward two more megaprojects coming to the top half of Metro Atlanta.”
Construction in the form of tree cutting has already begun on four new dedicated toll lanes on Georgia 400; two lanes heading southbound, two lanes heading northbound. Unlike the Northwest Corridor Express Lanes that run through both Interstate 75 and Interstate 575, the new lanes on Georgia 400 are not reversible, Hanlon says…