Good Company by Arthur M Blank

Author:Arthur M Blank [Blank, Arthur M]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780062974921
Amazon: 0062974920
Publisher: William Morrow
Published: 2020-09-15T04:00:00+00:00

Yes! In Our Backyard

Eleven acres of striped pavement. That’s the plan that was presented to me for the site of the Georgia Dome, just north of the new stadium. I sat in the construction trailer with our team and listened as they explained the rationale for the giant, single-level parking lot that they had decided would replace the old stadium.

It made sense. We needed parking, and that land was ours to use. But as I tried to picture it, I thought of the Westside residents, who had lived in the shadow of that concrete barricade for so long. Was this much better—to replace it with acres of blacktop that were only used on game days?

“Let’s rethink this,” I said.

There was dead silence. I could see the team thinking, “Oh, boy, here he goes. . . .”

“Don’t worry, I understand that we need parking,” I said. “But what I want to find out is, what does the community need for the other three-hundred-plus days when it’s sitting empty? How can we create a space that’s not just a dead asset?”

So often, companies think one-dimensionally about their own needs. If a company really sees itself as a citizen of the neighborhood, then every asset can be reexamined in light of the question: How else might this be used when we’re not using it?

We set out to answer that question, and the result was the green space that’s known today as The Home Depot Backyard. On game days and other major events at the stadium, it provides parking and a premium tailgating experience. On all the other days, it’s a community park, open to the public and programmed with free activities like music, dance, art, sports, movies, yoga classes, and many other things that the people who live nearby told us they wanted. There are food and drinks available, with the same fan-friendly pricing we use inside the stadium.

When we officially opened the park, Atlanta’s mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, attended. As she stood up to make her remarks, I saw that she was crying.

“My grandmother had a home—like, right over there,” she said, pointing across the Backyard. “And we never had any place to go play.”

Choking back her tears, she spoke about how meaningful it was to have this kind of community park where kids could come and play and adults could come and engage in healthy activities together.

In many ways, I’m just as proud of the Backyard as I am of the stadium. Don’t get me wrong—the stadium is magnificent, and when people are in it, it’s an extraordinary venue for the community to come together. But that doesn’t happen every day. The Backyard is available to those who are living right there, in those communities, day in and day out. And when we approached The Home Depot to invite them to sponsor it, it didn’t surprise me that they jumped at the chance to connect their brand to something so life-affirming and community-focused. It made me very proud to be able to put the name of the company I cofounded on this eleven-acre almost-parking-lot.

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