Chattahoochee Brick Company Memorial, Greenspace, and Park

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Chattahoochee Brick Company supplied countless bricks for buildings and infrastructure across Atlanta during decades of rapid growth after the Civil War.

From its inception in 1885, the company relied exclusively on leased convict labor, forcing primarily African-American men arrested under petty or dubious charges to work under brutal, sometimes fatal, conditions. In 2022, the City of Atlanta acquired this 75-acre site with a purposeful intent—to redevelop it as a public memorial, greenspace, and park that will reflect on the past, restore the land, and reconnect communities to the Chattahoochee River.

SCAPE, along with MASS Design Group’s Public Memory and Memorials Lab and Toole Design Group, led a thoughtful 16-month planning, design, and public engagement process to guide the transformation of this site on behalf of the City of Atlanta and its residents.

The Chattahoochee Brick Company site is located at the heart of the “Atlanta Reach,” one of the most populated segments of the 125-mile proposed Chattahoochee RiverLands greenway. As part of an integrated design process, the SCAPE team refined the alignment of the 6-mile Atlanta reach and strengthened connections between the regional trail system and the Chattahoochee Brick Company Memorial, Greenspace, and Park.

The project honors the lives of those who suffered, and often died, under the system of convict leasing.

At the site of the former factory, a monument conveys the volume of 200,000 bricks that were output daily by men, women, and children. The monument is designed by MASS Design Group's Public Memory and Memorials Lab.