How an Atlanta HBCU built an equity-funded splash pad for students, alumni, and neighbors
A composite case study of an HBCU campus family commons delivered by a Black-owned design firm, funded through alumni gifts, equity philanthropy, and neighborhood-access commitments.
Summary
This composite/representative HBCU case study follows an Atlanta campus that built a $1.05M splash pad as part of a family commons open to students, staff, alumni, and nearby Black neighborhoods. A Black-owned aquatic design firm led the project, the capital stack blended alumni gifts with equity-focused philanthropy, and first-summer use reached roughly 49,000 visits while also supporting orientation, homecoming, and community-health programming.
Key metrics
Background: a campus green that already functioned as neighborhood space
The campus at the center of this composite sits inside a historically Black neighborhood where the line between campus and community is intentionally porous. Families already used the main pedestrian promenade for walking, step-team practice, move-in weekends, and informal reunions before football games. What the school lacked was a summer anchor that felt visibly family-centered rather than transactional. The existing student plaza had benches, brick pavers, and a ceremonial lawn, but from May through August it became a hot expanse with little reason for local families to linger. Campus leaders heard the same critique from several directions at once: young alumni wanted the institution to feel more welcoming to graduates returning with children, neighborhood residents wanted tangible benefits from campus reinvestment, and student-affairs staff wanted a safe summer amenity that did not require the staffing burden of reopening an underused training pool. Rather than treat the issue as a simple beautification project, the college framed it as a belonging problem. The resulting splash pad proposal was folded into a broader Family Commons concept with shade, seating, stroller access, and event power infrastructure. That framing mattered. It let the school justify the project not as novelty, but as an equity-centered campus gateway where Black families could see themselves reflected in both the design process and the operating model.
Funding model: alumni philanthropy tied to equity outcomes
The final $1.05M capital stack came together through three sources that each carried a distinct narrative. Roughly $430,000 came from an alumni giving campaign organized around homecoming and reunion classes, with many gifts framed as investments in multi-generational campus life rather than standard athletics or scholarship appeals. Another $370,000 came from a regional racial-equity philanthropy collaborative that specifically funds capital improvements expanding high-quality public-facing amenities in historically Black neighborhoods. The grant agreement required free community access on designated summer days, public reporting on use, and procurement goals for Black-owned firms. The remaining $250,000 came from the college's deferred-site-improvement budget after the facilities team postponed a decorative fountain retrofit that had little constituency. Because the project sat on private campus property but promised structured neighborhood access, counsel had to write an operating covenant spelling out public hours, liability boundaries, and the institution's right to close the pad during major campus events. Finance staff also converted all philanthropic pledges into cash before construction bid award rather than relying on installment timing. That avoided a common nonprofit-capital mistake: letting inspirational campaign messaging outrun actual liquidity. By the time procurement opened, the project was fully funded on paper and in cash, which gave the college unusual leverage to insist on design quality and minority-business participation without worrying about a late fundraising gap.
Design team and design language: Black-owned leadership changed the brief
A Black-owned landscape-and-aquatics practice served as prime consultant, and multiple campus stakeholders later said that choice changed not just who got hired but what questions were asked. The first workshops did not begin with a feature catalog. They began with memory mapping: where families gathered during commencement, where Greek-letter organizations staged photos, where elders needed shorter walking distances, and how homecoming crowds moved across the promenade. That process produced a pad layout organized around ceremonial axes rather than around a generic circular spray field. The 3,500-square-foot zero-depth pad includes 19 features, but the surrounding environment is what carries the identity. Bronze-toned seat walls echo the campus palette, paving inlays reference quilt geometry and marching-band formations, and the tallest arch feature frames a view toward the college chapel rather than toward the street. Water play was deliberately scaled to support toddlers and younger elementary-age children instead of a destination thrill profile, because campus staff cared more about dwell time and family comfort than spectacle. The design also embedded practical equity choices: broad shade coverage for grandparents, stroller parking integrated into the seating plan, sensory-lower features on one edge for neurodivergent children, and hose bibs and floor drains that make event cleanup easier after community-health fairs. The design firm repeatedly argued that cultural fit would show up in operations later, and year one largely proved that point.
Community process: neighborhood access had to be defined, not implied
One of the most delicate tasks was clarifying what 'community access' actually meant on a private campus with security protocols and a busy event calendar. Neighborhood groups were skeptical of ribbon-cut language that promised openness without naming hours, bathrooms, or parking. Campus police were equally skeptical of an open-access model that could create ambiguity around student-only spaces nearby. The college convened a six-meeting advisory group that included local parents, a neighborhood association president, student-government representatives, alumni from nearby ZIP codes, disability advocates, and campus security. That group pushed several changes into the final plan. First, the pad received its own dedicated entrance path from the public street so visitors would not feel like they were trespassing. Second, family restrooms were located in a renovated ground-floor suite with exterior access instead of inside a student center that closes unpredictably during breaks. Third, the operating calendar was published before opening, with separate designations for public days, campus-priority days, orientation periods, and event closures. Fourth, the college created a simple online update page so parents could check hours before driving across town. Those decisions sound administrative, but they prevented the biggest reputational risk: families arriving in July and discovering that 'community access' really meant a few vaguely defined hours buried in policy language. By operationalizing access, the school converted a potential trust problem into one of the project's strongest assets.
Construction and procurement: mission language met real-world contracting
Construction moved from board approval in September 2024 to opening in May 2025, but only after the facilities office reworked its normal procurement playbook. The college typically bundled site projects under a general campus contractor pool, yet that approach would have diluted the MBE participation goals attached to the equity grant. Instead, the project was bid as a stand-alone package with a scored evaluation that weighted experience, minority-business participation, and campus-operations coordination. The winning team came in slightly above the engineer's estimate at $1.07M, then value-engineered back to $1.05M by simplifying one seat wall and reducing decorative lighting. A more consequential issue emerged during demolition: the existing promenade slab hid abandoned utilities from a long-removed fountain line, and several were still live on old drawings. That forced a three-week pause and additional scanning work before concrete could be cut safely. Facilities staff also insisted on opening before reunion weekend, which compressed commissioning and pushed the contractor to run evening shifts in April. Despite the schedule pressure, the school held the MBE spend target at 61% across design, concrete, metalwork, and signage. That outcome became as important to trustees as the finished pad itself. Several board members described the procurement process as proof that mission alignment could survive contact with bid tabs, schedules, and change-order pressure if the institution wrote those expectations into the contract instead of hoping vendors would infer them.
Operations and programming: not just a summer amenity
Year-one operations were built around a hybrid campus-and-community calendar rather than a simple daily-open model. The splash pad ran five public days per week during the summer, plus student-priority windows during orientation, alumni weekend, and move-in. The college staffed the site with 18 seasonal workers, many through work-study or summer youth employment pipelines, and bundled pad duties with event support, guest wayfinding, and community-program setup. That staffing structure kept labor flexible and turned the facility into an entry point for student employment training. Programming also broadened the pad's purpose. Public-health partners ran hydration and sunscreen tables twice each month. The admissions office hosted family-yield events for accepted students with younger siblings. Alumni affairs used the commons for class reunions, and the education department piloted Saturday literacy circles under the shade structures. Operating costs settled near $72,000, with labor and utilities comprising the largest share, but leadership emphasized that the pad's value could not be measured only by free-play visits. It supported campus-tour conversion, alumni stewardship, and neighborhood trust in a single footprint. Importantly, the school resisted monetizing peak days. There are no admission fees, no private buyouts during public hours, and no branded sponsorship decals on the play features. That restraint preserved the equity narrative funders had bought into and prevented the commons from drifting into a quasi-event-rental business.
Impact: belonging, alumni re-engagement, and a stronger campus edge
The clearest year-one outcome was volume: roughly 49,000 visits across the first full operating season, tracked through unobtrusive counters and event reservations. But the more important outcomes were relational. Admissions staff reported that accepted-student events held at the commons produced materially longer family dwell times than standard auditorium sessions, especially for first-generation families traveling with younger children. Alumni affairs saw reunion attendance improve, and post-event surveys repeatedly described the pad as evidence that the college was investing in family life rather than only in buildings students use for four years and leave. Neighborhood leaders focused on a different metric: predictability. For once, a campus-improvement promise translated into a public schedule, visible access, and usable shade during the hottest months. The health sciences program also noted spillover benefits, using the commons for community blood-pressure screenings and heat-safety outreach in ways that drew higher participation than indoor workshops ever had. There were frictions. Parking overflow on Saturdays required a shuttle from a nearby lot, and the quiet-zone features were more popular than expected, creating occasional crowding among families specifically seeking lower-sensory play. Still, trustees judged the project a success precisely because it performed across multiple missions at once. The pad did not just entertain children; it repaired the campus edge by making the institution feel physically and socially available to the people who already identified with it.
Replicability for other HBCUs and mission-driven campuses
The Founders Walk model is most replicable for urban HBCUs and similarly mission-driven campuses that already function as neighborhood landmarks but need a more intentional family-facing summer strategy. Three preconditions matter. First, the campus needs a site that can be open without compromising student housing or core security zones. Second, institutional leadership must be willing to define public access in operational detail rather than relying on aspirational language. Third, the capital stack needs at least one funding source that values equity outcomes, because many of the best decisions - Black-owned design leadership, generous shade, free public hours, expanded restroom access, and stronger minority-business requirements - do not emerge from a bare-minimum cost lens. The model is less useful for campuses seeking a student-only amenity or for institutions that cannot support summer operations consistently. It is especially relevant where alumni and surrounding residents share a sense that campus investment should produce visible neighborhood value. In those environments, the splash pad becomes more than a recreation feature. It is a compact civic statement about who the campus welcomes, whose children are imagined on campus grounds, and whether historic Black institutions can translate legacy and symbolism into everyday built experience. That is why the project travels better as a governance-and-equity template than as a feature list.
Voices from the project
“The most important design decision was not the water arch. It was deciding that neighborhood families would know exactly when they were welcome and where they could park, enter, and use the restrooms.”
“Being a Black-owned design firm did not mean decorative symbolism only. It meant we were trusted to ask who this space was really for and what family dignity looks like in operations, not just rendering images.”
“Alumni gave because this felt like investing in the next generation's memory of campus, not just another capital line item.”
Lessons learned
- Define community access in writing before fundraising is complete; hours, bathrooms, parking, and closure rules matter more than slogans.
- Use Black-owned design leadership and procurement scoring rather than informal outreach if equity outcomes are truly part of the brief.
- Frame the splash pad as a family commons so multiple campus departments can justify programming and staffing support.
- Convert philanthropic pledges to cash before bid award to protect design quality during procurement.
- Give the site a dedicated public approach path so neighborhood visitors do not feel like they are crossing into restricted campus territory.
- Protect the equity narrative by resisting admission fees and sponsor clutter on core public-facing days.
FAQ
Why would an HBCU build a splash pad instead of another student-only amenity?
For campuses that serve as neighborhood anchors, a splash pad can support student life, alumni engagement, admissions events, and visible community benefit at the same time. The strongest use case is a campus already functioning as shared civic space rather than an isolated residential enclave.
Can equity-focused philanthropy fund a campus splash pad?
Yes, when the project clearly expands high-quality neighborhood-facing access, includes strong procurement goals, and publishes a credible public operating model. Funders generally want measurable access commitments, not just campus beautification language.
What made the Black-owned design firm materially important here?
The design team changed the project brief itself by centering family memory, ceremonial movement, and operational dignity. That influenced access paths, shade, seating, sensory features, and the surrounding cultural language - not just vendor diversity statistics.
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