Airport concessions: Mayor’s appointee to Housing Authority among proposed winners now before Council

By David Pendered

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The companies selected by Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed’s administration to run the food and beverage concessions at the airport were made public today.

One of the proposed winners that is not now listed as a tenant at the airport is Atlanta Restaurant Partners, LLC, a local firm whose agent is listed on state incorporation papers as Daniel Halpern. Reed appointed Halpern to the Atlanta Housing Authority, where he helped engineer the planned departure of its CEO, Renee Glover.

Reed said told saportareport.com in October that he wanted his own team to run the housing authority.

Another firm that would be new to the tenant list is DNC, a national food service operation that contributed to Reed’s campaign.

The winners at this round now enter the political arena of the Atlanta City Council, where at today’s hearing Councilwoman Felicia Moore is questioning the process the administration used for bundling the winners into a single piece of legislation – and not as several smaller items that the council could handle on an individual basis.

Here are the companies the administration recommended be hired to handle all the food and beverage concessions at the airport for at least seven years after contracts are signed:

• Hojeij Branded Foods Inc.
• Concessions H&H JV
• HMS Host, two contracts
• DNC THS Partners
• Atlanta Restaurant Partners
• Global Concessions, Inc.
• Mack II, Inc.
• Vida-Velocity Management, LLC