The economy sucks. Local governments are slashing their budgets. MARTA is facing a $120 million operating shortfall and may have to cut its service by 25 percent. Many people are suffering from unemployment and underemployment. And our region, economically dependent on growth, is lagging.

It’s easy to get depressed, easy to feel that our best days are behind us.

But I can’t help feeling optimistic about the future. Maybe it’s because winter is finally on its way out and spring is coming. Maybe it’s because I’m tired of being depressed and pessimistic.

Yet I can point to two experiences this past week that have taken me out of my current misery and lifted me to take a longer view of the future of our city. And that future is bright.

My first experience was listening to a panel discussion between some of Atlanta’s top real estate leaders at the Atlanta Business Chronicle’s Deals of the Decades dinner at the Atlanta History Center on March 4.

The second experience was joining about 100 people from all over our region (and even one woman from Sweden) on Saturday to walk along the Northeast corridor of the Beltline. (I returned Sunday on a solo walk with my dogs to let the experience sink in and let my imagination run wild).

Both events gave me hope.

Let me give you a recap of the panel discussion between four of Atlanta’s leading real estate experts — Larry Gellerstedt III, CEO of Cousins Properties; David Allman, founder and chairman of Regent Partners – a leading developer in Buckhead; Jim Jacoby, developer of Atlantic Station and Aerotropolis; and Char Fortune, managing director of corporate services for Grubb & Ellis.

Gellerstedt said our region is undergoing a “sea change driven by demographics.” The trend is urbanization and the trend is towards more mixed use developments where people can live in pedestrian-friendly communities where they can walk to work, stores and parks.

“Young people want to live in an urban environment,” Allman said.

Jacoby said many people, young and old, want to live in healthier communities where they can walk rather than in the sprawling suburbs.

“People are coming back in the city — the young and the hip and the retired,” Jacoby said. “Atlanta could be a great opportunity for retirees.”

And Fortune said “Generation Y literally thinks the planet is deteriorating.” For that reason, forward-thinking developers will need to be thinking green.

ABC Publisher Ed Baker then asked the panel what they thought the market was going to look like in 10 years.

“The direction toward urbanization is here to stay,” Allman said. “That’s not going away. We’re going to see more emphasis on mixed use environments with more density. I think it will be a good time for the city if we can address the infrastructure needs — water, transportation and public education.”

Fortune expects the price of energy to rise. “I can see a future that’s going to be similar to Europe with gas at $5 a gallon,” she said. “People want to go back to a walking environment.”

Gellerstedt said metro Atlanta historically has been blessed with geography and great history. The region’s future will depend on whether state and local leaders will aggressively address Atlanta’s problems.

“There’s a crisis in leadership,” Gellerstedt said. As an example, Gellerstedt asked if there has been a major city other than Atlanta has not invested in light rail during the last decade.

Allman agreed.

“There’s a crisis in leadership emerging,” he said. “It’s hard to get consensus on big important issues. Will we rise to the occasion as our forefathers did?”

Later Allman added: “If you take care of infrastructure, it will happen organically. People will want to move here.”

The panel agreed that there needs to be stronger leadership at the state level.

“If I am governor, I focus on helping the metro area get regional solutions and transportation in place.”

If Gellerstedt were governor, he said he “would absolutely embrace the metro Atlanta region as the economic capital of this state. This region drives our state.”

And if he were mayor, Gellerstedt would role up his sleeves and get to work on the basic services of city government. “Atlanta is destined to be successful unless it crumbles on its own inertia,” he said.

This conversation gave me hope because the Atlanta region has been driven by developers, and the developers of today understand the value of a strong city and an environmentally healthy urban environment. Historically, Atlanta’s business leaders have managed to convince state and local governments to invest in our future.

Eventually, our economy will rebound. And if we’re lucky, we’ll elect leaders who will make sound public policy decisions that help us create an environmentally sensitive city built around people and nature rather than cars and pavement.

We were able to glimpse into that future on our Saturday hike along the Northeast corridor of the Beltline. We all felt like urban pioneers discovering a part of our city from an amazing new vantage point.

The tour was led by one of the most inspirational souls in our city — Angel Poventud — someone who has redefined community activism. Thanks to Angel and his renegade friends, weeds and kudzu along the Beltline have been cut back making much of the corridor comfortably accessible.

Angel and his friends also are working hard to illustrate the Beltline with urban art — both through official city channels as well as through any non-traditional avenues they can think of.

As we walked along the Beltline, we could see the future — a city where parking lots have become parks, where bicycle trails weave their way through new neighborhoods and where formerly dead-end streets will cross over the corridor — reconnecting our city into an urban grid to serve people rather than cars.

Yes, there is hope. If we are wise enough to support visionary leaders, sooner or later we will see an amazing city emerge from our auto-centric chaos. We can raise a brave and beautiful city that is a wonderful place to live.

By Guest Columnist LEE BIOLA, president of Citizens for Progressive Transit and a worker’s compensation lawyer.

Georgia built a world class public transportation system. Georgia destroyed a world class transportation system. Georgia can build a world class transit system again.

It was 1836. Georgia legislators sitting in Augusta voted to fund a taxpayer subsidized rail line out in the middle of nowhere. They wanted the line to run from one obscure dot on the map to another.

It was the best investment the people of Georgia ever made.

One of those dots on the map became Atlanta. The other became Chattanooga.

The tax-subsidized rail line helped transform tiny communities into economic powerhouses. Following the state’s investment in rail, for-profit rail companies built lines into Atlanta from every direction.

Passenger rail lines ran to places like Savannah, Brunswick, and Valdosta. In the early twentieth century, Georgia communities as small as Albany and St. Simons Island had electric streetcars. Electric streetcars would meet you at the train station in towns across Georgia and take you where you needed to go. Streetcar lines were the skeletons on which Georgia communities grew.

In the 1880s, Joel Hurt, a private developer bought up land between Atlanta and Decatur. Hurt used private money to build the city’s first electric streetcar in 1890. He ran the tracks from downtown Atlanta to his land in the middle of nowhere. The tracks quickly made his rural property very valuable. The streetcar line allowed him to sell his land at a sizable profit to people who built mansions, houses, and businesses in the neighborhood that became Inman Park.

By the 1920s, developers like Hurt had created 25 electric streetcar lines running throughout the city of Atlanta. Atlantans could ride the streetcar downtown and connect to streetcar lines that took them to other neighborhoods. They could take commuter rail lines that took them to suburbs such as Chamblee and Smyrna. They could take passenger rail to Macon or Savannah or express trains to New Orleans, New York and elsewhere in North America.

Georgia had a world class transportation system.

So what happened? In 1916, Georgia legislators made a major change of course. Following the federal government’s lead, Georgia created a Department of Highways that could only subsidize travel by car.

Massive subsidies for cars could not immediately kill private rail companies. But decades of that policy eventually did.

In the 1940s zoning laws began to force businesses to set aside land for free parking. The costs were passed on to customers whether they owned cars or not. Streets were widened and sidewalks were left unbuilt. While transportation officials made car travel priority number one, the commercial rail system and walkable communities that depended on it withered.

The federal government began a massive tax subsidized highway interstate building program in the 1950s. This was the nail in the coffin for for-profit transit systems, and the beginning of the end for commercial intercity passenger trains.

The effect on Georgia cities was devastating. While metro Atlanta outside the city limits became the fastest growing settlement in human history, its core, the City of Atlanta, actually began to shrink.

New highways were attracting development to the countryside around Atlanta. The Department of Highways completed I-285 in 1969. During the 1970s, the core City of Atlanta lost nearly 15% of its population.

Like Georgia legislators of 1836, Fulton and DeKalb County voters decided it was once again time to invest tax dollars in rail. They voted to raise a one cent sales tax to fund the MARTA rail system.

The first MARTA rail stations opened in 1979. With some rail service in the 1980s, the core city’s population loss slowed to 7%. As the MARTA system and the communities around it began to mature in the 1990s, Atlanta’s population began to grow again. The MARTA rail system made it possible for Atlanta to host the 1996 Olympics.

The last MARTA station opened in 2000. From 2000 to 2008, the core City of Atlanta’s population exploded 29%. One look at the city’s skyline shows where much of the new development went: right along the MARTA line. Of metro Atlanta’s twenty-five tallest buildings, twenty have been built since 1979. Every single one of those buildings is walking distance from a MARTA station.

Savannah is the most recent Georgia city to invest in rail. It opened a small streetcar line in February 2009 that has grown in popularity during its first year. City officials there are expanding hours of operation because they have found that the rail line, like so many rail lines before it, is attracting economic activity to places it would not otherwise go.

Previous generations of Georgians invested in rail. They showed it can be done right here. We are the heirs of these investments and we benefit from this inheritance every day. To whom much is given, much is expected. We have a responsibility to expand our investment in rail for future generations just as previous generations did for us.

Lee Biola has been a champion of public transit through his role as president of the Citizens for Progressive Transit. Here is Cfpt’s vision for transit. Biola also wanted to highlight the Transit Planning Board’s Concept 3 plan for a regional network of transit.
Lastly, to show how much we’ve lost, here is a map of all the transit lines that existed in Atlanta in the 1940s: (just keep clicking on the links).

Atlanta 1940 Streetcar Map

By Maria Saporta
Friday, March 5, 2010

For the first time ever, the United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta Inc. has a $5 million donor — Publix Super Markets Inc.

The grocery store company, already the top donor last year raising $4.69 million, experienced an 8.5 percent increase in its United Way campaign, to top $5 million.

“Publix just continues to amaze us,” said Bonnie Cole, senior vice president of resource development for Atlanta’s United Way.

That was one of the bright spots of the 2009 campaign, which fell slightly short of its $80.5 million goal. United Way was scheduled to hold its campaign celebration March 4, but as of press time, it did not have a final campaign number.

“We hate the fact that we are short, but all things considered, we did pretty well,” said Milton Little, president of United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta. “One word I have consistently used as we were going through the highs and lows is ‘resilient.’ With all that we have gone through, we’ve had very little change in our top donors.”

By comparison to Atlanta’s slight decrease, Little said there are United Ways around the country that have experienced declines of 5 percent, 10 percent and even 15 percent from the year before.

Nationally, another major milestone was hit. Wells Fargo, following the merger with Wachovia, became the nation’s top donor becoming the first $60 million donor ever. The bank replaced Atlanta-based United Parcel Service Inc., which has held those bragging rights for years.

Locally, Wachovia, a Wells Fargo Co., returned to the million-dollar rank after having fallen off that list for a year.

Other highlights of the 2009 campaign were three campaigns that enjoyed double-digit increases.

AGL Resources Inc.’s campaign increased by 17 percent to the $1.3 million level. That could partly be attributed to the fact that John Somerhalder, AGL’s CEO, served as the United Way campaign chair. Somerhalder also has agreed to stay on and chair the 2010 campaign.

Printpack Inc. enjoyed an increase of 13.5 percent, raising about $450,000; and Rollins Inc. had a 12 percent increase with a campaign totaling about $800,000.

The Marriott Marquis was the single-largest hotel contributor in the country, raising $45,000.

Kaiser Permanente of Georgia Inc. contributed about $400,000 for United Way’s efforts to increase access to health care, an increase from about $150,000 the year before.

Newell Rubbermaid Inc., one of metro Atlanta’s relatively new Fortune 500 headquarters, ran its first employee campaign. It raised about $260,000 in its employee and corporate donations. In all, United Way received a total of about $600,000 in contributions from new company donors.

Gas South, which launched its first campaign in 2008, nearly tripled its contributions from $11,000 to $32,000.

Gas South’s Kevin Greiner is leading the United Way campaign in Cobb County.

Publix wasn’t the only retailer to increase its campaign numbers. The Kroger Co., already a million-dollar donor, increased its contributions by 2.3 percent.

Looking to 2010, Little said it was going to be a “dog fight,” because of double-digit unemployment and anxiety in the work force. But again Little used the word “resilient,” to describe Atlanta. “The companies that have been consistently generous to us and have been leading the pack are still there,” he said.

Although the final audited numbers won’t be completed until June 30, United Way does know which companies are in the million-dollar categories.

After Publix with $5 million, there are two campaigns bringing in at least $4 million: the Combined Federal Campaign and AT&T Inc.

Two companies are in the $3 million category: UPS and The Coca-Cola Co. And two companies are at the $2 million level: SunTrust Banks Inc. and Georgia Power Co./Southern Co.

In addition of AGL, Wachovia and Kroger, rounding out the million-dollar donors are IBM Corp., Deloitte, GE companies, State Charitable Program, Ernst & Young LLP, QuikTrip Corp., Cox Enterprises Inc. and related companies, Bank of America, King & Spalding LLP and Delta Air Lines Inc.

Delta CEO Richard Anderson will chair the United Way campaign in 2011.

Hunger Walk/Run

The Atlanta restaurant industry is playing a key role in this year’s Hunger Walk/Run on March 14 at Turner Field.

Robby Kukler, a partner of Fifth Group Restaurants, and Ron Wolf, executive director of the Georgia Restaurant Association, have created a “turnkey package” to help restaurants participate in the 2010 Hunger Walk/Run. Both Kukler and Wolf serve on the advisory board of the Atlanta Community Food Bank.

The original goal was to sign up 50 restaurants and raise $150,000. According to Food Bank spokeswoman Angie Clawson, 100 restaurants have signed up and will support the Hunger Walk with teams. “This fundraising program is the first of its kind, as far as I know, in Atlanta,” Clawson wrote in an e-mail.

Sustainable Atlanta sustained

Sustainable Atlanta has received a $50,000 grant from the UPS Foundation to help support two initiatives of the organization. The first is a policy initiative for the Energy Taskforce, a group of academic, business, civic, governmental and nonprofit leaders working to minimize Atlanta’s carbon footprint.

The second initiative is to help Sustainable Atlanta establish a metric dashboard to track its progress and to help fund the second sustainability report for the city of Atlanta.

Becker first for Ferst

The favorite executive reader in Atlanta is — Mark Becker, president of Georgia State University. Becker received the inaugural “For the Love of Reading” award from the Ferst Foundation and its Childhood Literacy efforts March 1.

Becker read “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” to preschool children at a child development center at GSU campus. Eight other CEOs participated in the competition.

By Maria Saporta

In the end, the 2009 campaign of United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta raised $79.3 million, less than 1.5 percent shy of its $80.5 million goal.

Given the economic struggles of the past year, United Way leaders were celebrating Thursday night when they heard the news.

Before announcing the campaign results, John Somerhalder, the 2009 campaign chair who is CEO of AGL Resources, set the stage by preparing the crowd of several hundred that bad news was coming.

First, the goal was the same amount that United Way was able to raise in 2008.

“That was a bold and aggressive goal,” said Somerhalder, explaining that such a goal was important because the community’s needs were so great.

United Way knew that other organizations were struggling in their fundraising efforts, often coming in with double-digit decreases in their campaigns.

The 2009 campaign had to stretch even more because in 2008, United Way had launched a one-time Critical Needs Campaign. That special campaign raised $3.7 million, which was included in the 2008 campaign numbers.

“We knew we weren’t going to ask for those (dollars) again,” Somerhalder said. That meant the campaign cabinet would have to work even harder to reach the goal.

Given all those odds, Somerhalder declared the 2009 campaign a success.

Publix Super Markets is one of the reasons metro Atlanta’s United Way did as well as it did. For the first time Atlanta’s history, one company — Publix — raised more than $5 million.

Somerhalder also recognized four companies that have been loaning executives to United Way for five decades or more — Georgia Power, Genuine Parts, SunTrust and the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.

Milton Little, United Way’s Atlanta president, gave credit to Somerhalder for the successful campaign.

“Any time any of us were dodging bullets, John said, ‘We are going to get through this,’” Little said.

Later Little said that United Way employees donated a total $173,152 towards the campaign.

Toward the end of the program at the Loudermilk Center, Little said that normally that would be the time for this upcoming year’s campaign chair would come on stage to accept the baton from last year’s campaign chairman.

But Little said that wouldn’t be possible this year because last year’s campaign chair was the same person as this year’s campaign chair. Somerhalder agreed to serve as campaign chair for a second year, the first time that had happened in the history of Atlanta’s United Way.

So Little called Somerhalder on stage to receive a couple of gifts. One gift was a boomerang, a toy that when thrown returns to its same spot.

“Thank you for returning,” Little told Somerhalder.

By Maria Saporta

Three of Atlanta most important former planning commissioners had a message for newly-elected Mayor Kasim Reed — good planning should be an integral part of his administration.

The three former commissioners were invited to the “Dear Mayor Reed” program by the Georgia Tech Student Planning Association Thursday night at White Provisions on Howell Mill and 14th streets in one of the most striking meeting spaces in Atlanta.

As the moderator of the discussion, I wasn’t able to take diligent notes of what was said. Fortunately, my colleague Thomas Wheatley, a reporter with Creative Loafing, was there, and I look forward to reading his report.

But there were several memorable messages from the evening.

As Mayor Reed struggles with underfunded pensions, budget deficits, public safety concerns and countless other city headaches, he should also take a forward-looking view of Atlanta. What makes a city work?

Leon Eplan, who did two terms as planning commissioner — (1974 to 1978 and 1990 to 1996) under the late Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson — spoke of how policies enacted 30 or 40 years ago led to the resurgence of the city.

When Jackson passed a new city charter in his first tenure as mayor, it shifted the city’s power in a couple of ways. Atlanta went from having a weak mayor/strong council form of government to a strong mayor government. It also gave neighborhoods a much greater voice in planning and land-use decisions through the Neighborhood Planning Unit system.

Mike Dobbins served as planning commissioner from 1996 to 2002 mostly under former Mayor Bill Campbell.

Dobbins provided a three-paged single-spaced synopsis of how Mayor Reed should approach planning in an effort to reduce poverty and racism and how he can help “lift city policy to shape development to meet community needs and aspirations” and not just aim to please developers.

And then there was Steve Cover, who served as commissioner from 2006 to 2008 under former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin.

He offered Mayor Reed six tangible recommendations: develop the multimodal station downtown, focus on the Fort McPherson redevelopment opportunity, build the Center for Civil and Human Rights, implement the Connect Atlanta transportation plan, rewrite the city’s zoning code. and outsource part of the department’s operations, such as the Bureau of Buildings.

Dobbins took exception to the privatization recommendation, which was just one example of how the three planners agreed and disagreed with each other — offering a lively exchange of ideas of how Atlanta should prepare itself to welcome growth in the future.

But they all agreed that the mayor should gain a greater appreciation for the role planning can play in encouraging healthy and sustainable economic development, which will contribute to the city’s tax base.

Dobbins suggested that Mayor Reed spend time in Charleston, S.C. with Mayor Joe Riley to better understand the role of good planning in building great cities.

Getting three Atlanta planning experts in a room and getting them to share ideas and discuss different approaches to the city’s thorny problems was a stimulating way to spend an evening.

And had Mayor Reed been present, he would have walked away dreaming of Atlanta’s possibilities rather than being weighted down by all of our city’s problems.

Maybe next time.

By Maria Saporta

Three of Atlanta most important former planning commissioners had a message for newly-elected Mayor Kasim Reed — good planning should be an integral part of his administration.

The three former commissioners were invited to the “Dear Mayor Reed” program by the Georgia Tech Student Planning Association Thursday night at White Provisions on Howell Mill and 14th streets in one of the most striking meeting spaces in Atlanta.

As the moderator of the discussion, I wasn’t able to take diligent notes of what was said. Fortunately, my colleague Thomas Wheatley, a reporter with Creative Loafing, was there, and I look forward to reading his report.

But there were several memorable messages from the evening.

As Mayor Reed struggles with underfunded pensions, budget deficits, public safety concerns and countless other city headaches, he should also take a forward-looking view of Atlanta. What makes a city work?

Leon Eplan, who did two terms as planning commissioner — (1974 to 1978 and 1990 to 1996) under the late Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson — spoke of how policies enacted 30 or 40 years ago led to the resurgence of the city.

When Jackson passed a new city charter in his first tenure as mayor, it shifted the city’s power in a couple of ways. Atlanta went from having a weak mayor/strong council form of government to a strong mayor government. It also gave neighborhoods a much greater voice in planning and land-use decisions through the Neighborhood Planning Unit system.

Mike Dobbins served as planning commissioner from 1996 to 2002 mostly under former Mayor Bill Campbell.

Dobbins provided a three-paged single-spaced synopsis of how Mayor Reed should approach planning in an effort to reduce poverty and racism and how he can help “lift city policy to shape development to meet community needs and aspirations” and not just aim to please developers.

And then there was Steve Cover, who served as commissioner from 2006 to 2008 under former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin.

He offered Mayor Reed six tangible recommendations: develop the multimodal station downtown, focus on the Fort McPherson redevelopment opportunity, build the Center for Civil and Human Rights, implement the Connect Atlanta transportation plan, rewrite the city’s zoning code. and outsource part of the department’s operations, such as the Bureau of Buildings.

Dobbins took exception to the privatization recommendation, which was just one example of how the three planners agreed and disagreed with each other — offering a lively exchange of ideas of how Atlanta should prepare itself to welcome growth in the future.

But they all agreed that the mayor should gain a greater appreciation for the role planning can play in encouraging healthy and sustainable economic development, which will contribute to the city’s tax base.

Dobbins suggested that Mayor Reed spend time in Charleston, S.C. with Mayor Joe Riley to better understand the role of good planning in building great cities.

Getting three Atlanta planning experts in a room and getting them to share ideas and discuss different approaches to the city’s thorny problems was a stimulating way to spend an evening.

And had Mayor Reed been present, he would have walked away dreaming of Atlanta’s possibilities rather than being weighted down by all of our city’s problems.

Maybe next time.

By Maria Saporta
Friday, February 26, 2010

The campaign to raise $325 million for Grady Memorial Hospital has crossed a key milestone.

“We have broken the $300 million mark,” said Tom Bell, SecurAmerica executive chairman, who has been leading the fundraising campaign along with Pete Correll, an investor in the Atlanta Equity Fund and retired CEO of Georgia-Pacific LLC. Grady Hospital CEO Mike Young also has been part of most fundraising calls.

The actual amount raised is $302 million from 50 donors, and Bell said he is hopeful they will be able to wrap up the campaign by the end of the year.

According to the fundraising firm Coxe Curry & Associates, there are 34 requests pending or in process that total $44 million in asks. Plus there are another 21 priority prospects to be solicited.

Bell said he has been pleased by the community response to help Grady Hospital.

“It’s classic Atlanta,” Bell said. “Here we have the worst recession since the Great Depression, and here in the metropolitan area, every single person or organization that we have asked, we’ve gotten a yes.”

Ann Curry, president of Coxe Curry, said the campaign has been a committee effort, but that the “number of face-to-face calls that Tom, Pete and Mike Young have made is unprecedented in my history of campaigns in Atlanta.”

Grady also is getting ready to launch its smaller gifts program under the leadership of Lisa Borders, who is president of the Grady Foundation. Those would be for gifts of $1,000 or more.

The major donors to the campaign so far include: the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation, $200 million; the Marcus Foundation, $20 million; an anonymous gift of $5 million; Kaiser Permanente of Georgia Inc., $5 million; the Coca-Cola Foundation, $3 million; Georgia Power Co., $3 million; the O. Wayne Rollins Foundation, $3 million; the Zeist Foundation, $3 million; Cox Enterprises Inc., $2.5 million; and SunTrust Banks Inc., $2.5 million.

Correll honored

Modern Healthcare Magazine has named Pete Correll Trustee of the Year for large health-care organizations (hospitals with more than $75 million in annual revenue or more than 250 beds).

The prestigious award recognizes individuals and organizations that have been instrumental in helping hospitals in their communities. Correll won for helping “spearhead a renaissance at Grady Health System.”

United Way update

No one yet knows what the final number for the 2009 campaign will be when United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta Inc. holds its annual “victory” celebration on March 4.

But what is known is that even if the goal is not reached, just getting close to the $80.5 million goal will be a victory in itself.

“It’s a struggle,” said Milton Little, president of Atlanta’s United Way. “We have a plan for how to get there. We are closing the gap, but we won’t know until the final day whether we’ll be able to close that gap. It was an incredibly difficult environment.”

This campaign was particularly difficult because it occurred in the midst of one of the worst economic periods in metro Atlanta’s history.

The decision was made to keep the goal at the same level of last year’s campaign. But in 2008, United Way launched a one-time Critical Needs campaign that raised $3.7 million to address immediate needs brought on by the recession. Those dollars were included as part of last year’s campaign.

John Somerhalder, CEO of AGL Resources Inc. who chaired the 2009 campaign and agreed to stay on to chair the 2010 campaign, echoed Little’s sentiments.

“The good news is that as a result of hard-working volunteers and United Way staff, and very generous businesses and employees in metro Atlanta, the gap is smaller than what we hear from many other areas,” Somerhalder wrote in an e-mail. “In this environment, it is still extremely difficult to close that gap.”

Neither Little nor Somerhalder wanted to quantify the current size of the gap, but when asked if it could be as high as 10 percent, Little quickly said it wasn’t that big.

The victory (or near-victory) celebration will be held at the Loudermilk Center.

$138M for nonprofits

In the good news category, the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta was able to give away more than $138.4 million to nonprofits and faith-based organizations in 2009, a record number for the organization.

The Community Foundation, which represents more than 600 philanthropists in metro Atlanta, had received a total of $115.5 million in gifts the same year, the third-highest year in its history.

“Our strong performance last year demonstrates the unique ability of community foundations to consistently respond to community needs, even amidst difficult financial times,” said Alicia Philipp, president of the Atlanta foundation.

One reason the numbers were so robust this past year was because it included the $32 million donation of the Martin Luther King Jr. papers to Morehouse College. The total gifts also included about $11.5 million the community gave to help the foundation pay for the collection.

Delta and Atlanta

Delta Air Lines Inc. CEO Richard Anderson has learned how to speak Atlanta.

In a Feb. 22 speech to the Rotary Club of Atlanta, Anderson drove home the point that Atlanta and Delta are inseparable.

“Atlanta is home to Delta,” Anderson said during his first speech to Rotary since he was named CEO in September 2007. “Delta and Atlanta are almost synonymous terms.”

At one point, there was great concern about whether Anderson, who had been a top executive of Minneapolis-based Northwest Airlines, would be committed to keeping Delta’s center of gravity in Atlanta after the merger of the two airlines. But Anderson made it clear to Rotarians that his loyalties were to Atlanta.

— Staff writer J. Scott Trubey contributed to this report.

By J. Scott Trubey and Maria Saporta
Friday, February 26, 2010

The Chick-fil-A Bowl will be spun off from the Atlanta Sports Council into a new entity headed by Gary Stokan, the bowl’s president and CEO, officials with the Metro Atlanta Chamber said.

Dan Corso, vice president of marketing for the council, has been tapped to head the chamber’s sports marketing arm. The separation is expected to take place March 1.

Stokan, the sports council’s president and CEO for the past 12 years, will shift his focus fully to growth of the bowl, the Chick-fil-A College Football Kickoff Classic and development of the planned College Football Hall of Fame.

“The Chick-fil-A Bowl is one of the most successful, well-branded bowl games in the country, and Gary Stokan’s leadership has been a driving force behind its success,” Sam Williams, president of the chamber, said in a statement.

The chamber took over operation of what was then a struggling bowl game in 1986.

The bowl game and the Kickoff Classic will be spun off into an independent entity under Peach Bowl Inc., the founding name of the 42-year-old New Year’s Eve gridiron battle.

“This is a natural evolution for the bowl, which has grown tremendously since we brought it under the chamber’s umbrella in 1985. We have confidence in Gary’s team and their future success,” Williams said.

The sports council is an important economic development tool for the Metro Atlanta Chamber. It is designed to promote professional and college sports teams, and has been instrumental in landing major sporting events for the city, such as the Super Bowl and Final Four.

“This is an exciting time and a significant milestone in the 42-year history of our game,” Stokan said.

Stokan joined the sports council in 1998. Under his leadership the Atlanta Sports Council was named Sports Commission of the Year three times (2000, 2004 and 2006).

Atlanta has played host to 32 collegiate sports championships since 2000, including the NCAA Men’s Final Four (2002 and 2007), the Women’s Final Four (1993 and 2003). The city also has been home to the SEC Football Championship since 1994.

The city will play host to the Men’s Final Four again in 2013.

Stokan, reached for an interview Feb. 22, said his role needed to be split. Development of the college football shrine needs the full attention of its leadership, and the chamber is not equipped to be a real estate developer.

The college hall is expected to open in Atlanta in September 2012. Peach Bowl Inc., which will own the facility, is still trying to raise reportedly up to $80 million to bring the hall to Centennial Olympic Park.

The council will still coordinate Atlanta’s bids for top sporting events, such as NCAA Final Fours and Super Bowls, and will represent the business community as it applies to sports, economic development, quality of life and the building of Atlanta’s brand.

The sports council will continue to operate the Atlanta Tip Off Club, manage the Atlanta sports awards and the Naismith Trophy and awards banquet, and will remain a negotiating partner of Atlanta’s committee to help the United States secure World Cup soccer in 2018 or 2022.

Jeff Genthner, senior vice president and general manager of Fox Sports Net and chairman of the sports council, said the Feb. 23 announcement represents a milestone of growth for Peach Bowl Inc. and the sports council.

“Gary’s 12 years here are well-documented in growing this into what has become a terrific and valuable asset for the chamber and for the city,” Genthner said.

Stokan, Genthner said, leaves behind a capable team, led by Corso, an 11-year sports council veteran.

“The most important thing in a transition like this is you don’t miss a step,” Genthner said.

Rumors have swirled for weeks about a possible split between the sports council and the bowl. Some in the sports community have said privately that Stokan had a prickly relationship with the city’s pro teams.

Chamber and sports council officials said any perceived tension between Stokan and the teams did not play a role in the spinning off of the bowl game.

Stokan bristled at that characterization Feb. 22, saying his group has been responsive to the pro sports teams. He pointed to a September meeting between the council and the teams and said he has worked to expand the organization’s efforts to promote and support the professional teams.

“All you can do is show the evidence of what you’ve done,” Stokan said. “Experience or effort shows more than words.”

Some in the sports community have suggested the council might take a more pro sports-centric role.

Genthner said the group would focus on growth of existing properties and future opportunities.

“There clearly is an opportunity for us to reach out and do more with the pro teams, but that is not going to be the sole focus,” he said.

Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank said the pro teams have an interest in working with each other and the collegiate programs.

“There’s good energy and new ideas,” Blank said of the changes within the sports council. “We would be happy to be involved in any way we could be of help.”

By J. Scott Trubey and Maria Saporta
Friday, February 26, 2010

When it came time to select an investment adviser for the potential sale of beleaguered Sea Island, it all started with relationships.

Sea Island Co. announced Feb. 18 it had retained Goldman Sachs & Co. to advise it in a possible sale of the posh but debt-riddled resort and seaside community.

Enter Walter Driver, former United States Golf Association president, Augusta National Golf Club member and Southeastern chairman of the powerhouse Wall Street investment bank, who is said to be leading Sea Island Co.’s search for a buyer or equity investor in the iconic seaside resort and golf mecca. As one might imagine from a man of his background, he’s also one hell of a golfer.

Driver is the retired chairman of powerhouse Atlanta law firm King & Spalding LLP, the longtime attorneys for Sea Island Co., and is a director of Columbus, Ga.-based Total System Services Inc, or TSYS, (NYSE: TSS), the credit card processing firm and spin-off of Sea Island’s lead lender, Synovus Financial Corp. (NYSE: SNV).

In January, Sea Island Co. Chairman and CEO Bill Jones III revealed the company had defaulted on approximately $400 million in consolidated debt from its half-billion dollar renovation and expansion of the fabled Cloister and Lodge hotels and residential developments.

Sea Island Co. announced it had reached a forbearance agreement with its lead lender, Synovus-subsidiary Columbus Bank & Trust, which held at least $220 million of that debt.

The resort and development company said it expects to complete a review of its options — which include finding an investor or an outright sale — in “a timely manner.”

“We have dealt with uncertainty long enough and I am confident that this review will provide us an opportunity to build a solid financial foundation for our future,” Jones said in a statement Feb. 18.

Driver and his team at Goldman Sachs is said to have beat out other interested investment banks, including Morgan Stanley, in a relative “beauty pageant” of competing Wall Street houses.

“Walt certainly knows all the players and most of the board members at Sea Island and the board of Synovus,” said Tom Bell, former CEO of Cousins Properties Inc. “He would be a real asset for them.”

In an interview with Atlanta Business Chronicle (see related story Page 1A), Synovus Chairman and CEO Richard Anthony said there is interest in Sea Island because of its “uniqueness” and its “exceptional lifestyle.”

“There are interested buyers and we’re aware of some of them and others have come directly to the [Sea Island] company,” Anthony said. “But over the next few months I think we’ll all learn a lot about the interest level and how fast this will all move. It’s going to be very attractive to a lot of people but in the end you don’t know what form [a resolution] will take.”

The focus now turns to whom the potential investor, or group of investors, might be.

Sources have said the members of Ocean Forest, the gated golf community on Sea Island’s northern tip, have been negotiating with the Jones family to acquire the community and its world-renowned links for $35 million, which was also said to be the amount of an interest payment that was due Sea Island Co.’s lenders Dec. 31, 2009.

Residents and real estate sources familiar with the situation have speculated that prospective buyers and investors could include Kohler Co. CEO Herb Kohler or hospitality-focused private equity firms.

Facing competition from luxury hotel chains, Sea Island Co. created a new vision for itself and launched a renovation and expansion that lasted from 1998 to 2006. Among other projects, it developed Frederica, a 3,000-acre community limited to 400 to 500 single-family homes on the north end of St. Simons Island.

But to fulfill that dream, Sea Island Co. took on tremendous debt. That, coupled with cost overruns on the resort, the tanking housing market and then the global recession, has placed the company under enormous financial strain.

Last summer, the hotel and resort management company announced it had finalized the terms of an April 22, 2009, restructuring agreement with its lenders, and had consolidated as much as $400 million in outstanding debt into a three-year credit facility that matures in July 2012.

For months, rumors swirled a sale was imminent for part or all of Sea Island Co.’s holdings, including its thousands of acres of coastal marshland, pine forests, gated communities and golf courses.

Still, it’s a stunning turn of events for a historic resort that has played host to leaders of nations, captains of industry and been a playground for elite families from across the globe.

Despite its prestigious heritage, Sea Island Co. was caught in a real estate and financial maelstrom that has felled many beleaguered developers who found their projects hemorrhaging cash and deep underwater without a way to refinance.

In November, Wells Fargo & Co. took over the deeds to its 3,000-acre Frederica golf course community on the Georgia coast and to an undeveloped 400-acre parcel on St. Simons Island. In October, Sea Island announced it was selling nearly 18,000 acres, including land planned for a massive residential and mixed-use development.

By Maria Saporta

For 12 years, Southface has been putting on its Greenprints conference to let builders, architects, planners and environmentalist know the latest in green building technology.

Ideas that might have seemed novel or forward thinking 12 years ago have now become accepted and expected.

“The green economy is going to be the only future economy that we will have available to us,” said John Straube, a building science engineer from Ontario, Canada who is an international expert in energy efficient buildings and was one of the keynote speakers at this year’s Greenprints conference.

His co-panelist, Alex Wilson, founder of BuildingGreen and executive editor of Environmental Building News, said the “green economy is solving problems in smarter ways.”

But challenges remain. In particular, retrofitting existing buildings to become more energy efficient is a huge undertaking that will require government incentives and greater public awareness on what currently is available in the industry.

Both Straube and Wilson don’t expect there to be “silver bullets” that will make our buildings more energy efficient overnight. Instead, Straube said there are “technologies that don’t need to be invented, but need to be deployed.”

The most important first step that owners of existing buildings can do is conduct an energy audit to see what kind of retrofits are needed. As Straube said, one can put in the highest energy-efficient window in a “leaky house,” and it won’t do any good.

But the upside is tremendous.

“Even a 50 percent reduction in energy use in homes is huge,” Wilson said, adding that such a reduction would dramatically improve climate change and reduce our dependence on foreign oils.

Straube also said that homeowners would be smart to time their energy upgrades when they are renovating their homes. When an HVAC system needs to be replaced, then find one with the highest energy ratings.

Both Straube and Wilson were excited about the possibilities of a developing a “smart grid” for energy distribution.

But both also saw that developing smart grid technologies would make electricity more expensive, something that they welcome. For example, several energy improvements are considered too expensive. But when the cost of energy increases, then those investments make more economic sense.

“I think smarter grids will help clean up the world,” Straube said.

In one of the breakout sessions after the luncheon speech, panelists said that solar energy and the development of other renewable energies would benefit by higher electricity prices.

The costs of providing solar energy are decreasing, and if traditional electricity prices rise, then solar will become an even more attractive alternative.

Walter Brown, a senior vice president of development and environmental affairs for Green Street Properties, also chairs the Georgia Solar Energy Association. Compared to other states like Tennessee, North Carolina and Florida, Georgia has been slow to invest in solar energy.

“This is still just the beginning,” Brown said, adding that several Georgia companies now have become leaders in solar technology.

Meanwhile, Georgia utility companies and government leaders have been reluctant to mandate a renewable energy portfolio.

By comparison, North Carolina passed a Renewable Energy Efficiency Portfolio Standard in 2007 that set a goal of getting 12.5 percent of its energy from renewables by 2021,.

“We are the first state to adopt a portfolio in the Southeast,” said Dennis Scanlin, a professor in sustainable development at Appalachian State University in North Carolina. Scanlin added that the portfolio has been the “most significant driver” in North Carolina to invest in renewable technologies.