Oakland Cemetery's columbarium could be your true forever home

Axios

28-07-2025

For the first time in roughly 140 years, the public has an opportunity to secure a space in Atlanta's most exclusive spot to spend eternity.
Driving the news: The nonprofit that oversees Oakland Cemetery, the final resting place for famous Atlantans that's also a city park, is moving forward with plans to build a columbarium (pronounced kuh-luhm-br-ee-uhm).
Why it matters: The columbarium — essentially a mausoleum for urns containing people's cremains — opens end-of-life access to a new generation of Atlantans who love the 48-acre cemetery.
The sales of the spaces will help create sustainable funding to maintain the grounds and preserve headstones of people whose loved ones and family members no longer care for the plots.
Catch up quick: Founded in 1850, Oakland was the city of Atlanta's first municipal cemetery.
Within 30 years, all the cemetery's burial spots had been sold, Richard Harker, the president and CEO of the Historic Oakland Foundation, told Axios.
Since then, people wanting to purchase burial plots had to turn to private sales, sometimes from families who owned the coveted spots for decades.
Harker said the cemetery conducted a feasibility study about adding a columbarium in 2008.
Zoom in: The 250-space columbarium will be located on an abandoned roadway next to the recently restored Women's Comfort Station and African American burial grounds.
The spaces will accommodate one to as many as four urns in various sizes. They will include eight "family estates" that can fit eight urns, Harker said.
Pricing will be finalized in the next two to four weeks, he said. Solo spaces on the lower level could start around $6,000.
The big picture: If the project is successful, Harker said, the foundation could build a few additional columbaria.
Yes, but: Harker said the foundation intends to honor community members' and city officials' stated desires to ensure the columbarium blends seamlessly into the cemetery's landscape and history.
What they're saying:"You don't want to overwhelm the historic fabric of the cemetery by building units that are massively high or massively overbearing," he said.
"So that's part of our thought process: How do we do this sensitively to the historic cemetery, while also offering folk that new opportunity?"
Fun fact: Famous residents include former mayors (Maynard Jackson), athletes (golf legend Bobby Jones) and celebrities ("Gone With the Wind" author Margaret Mitchell and country singer Kenny Rogers.)
The intrigue: Oakland was founded without an endowment and is not a perpetual care cemetery, meaning the foundation must find funding to care for the grounds and buildings and launch capital campaigns.