Maria Saporta, executive editor, is a longtime Atlanta business, civic and urban affairs journalist with a deep knowledge of our city, our region and state. From 2008 to 2020, she wrote weekly columns and news stories for the Atlanta Business Chronicle. Prior to that, she spent 27 years with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, becoming its business columnist in 1991. Maria received her Master’s degree in urban studies from Georgia State and her Bachelor’s degree in journalism from Boston University. Maria was born in Atlanta to European parents and has two young adult children. She launched SaportaReport in February 2009.
By Maria Saporta
Leonardo McLarty, president of the DeKalb Chamber of Commerce for nearly 10 years, will leave the organization on May 23 to become director of economic and community development for the City of York, Pa beginning on June 2.
McLarty sent an email earlier today to DeKalb Chamber members and friends letting them know of his upcoming move.
By Maria Saporta
Atlanta-based Aaron’s Inc., a leading lease-to-own retailer, announced Tuesday morning that it has acquired Progressive Finance Holdings, LLC, a leading virtual lease-to-own company, from Summit Partners in an all-cash transaction valued at about $700 million.
Aaron’s will operate Progressive as a wholly-owned subsidiary. John Robinson, Progressive’s CEO, will join the Aaron’s executive leadership team as executive vice president and CEO of Progressive, reporting directly to Ronald W. Allen, Aaron’s CEO.
“This is a highly complementary and transformative acquisition for Aaron’s, and we are eager to capture the significant opportunities this combination will provide for our customers, franchisees, and shareholders,” Allen said in the release.
How can Atlanta be both a “poster child of sprawl” and a burgeoning example of “walkable urban places” – creating a metro area with compact town centers?
That was the question Chris Leinberger, a real estate executive and urbanist who specializes in market trends, decided to ask himself during a “Creative Changemakers” talk at Serenbe on April 11.
It was an appropriate topic for Leinberger because he, as much as anyone, is responsible for labeling Atlanta a poster child of sprawl. Now Leinberger is leading the back-pedaling movement — armed with facts and figures — letting both local and national developers know that the sprawl pendulum is swinging the other way.
By Maria Saporta
At its 30th anniversary lunch celebration, Young Audiences did something a little different.
It announced to the world that it is changing its name — to Arts for Learning/ Woodruff Arts Center — on June 1.
Charisse Williams, president of Young Audiences, said the past year has been a great year to reflect on the organization’s past three decades, but also a time to look forward to its next 30 years. Young Audiences has been refining its strategy and working on how to best tell its story.
By Maria Saporta
In one of the most anticipated sports announcements in recent Atlanta history, Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank is expected to announce on Wednesday that he has reached an agreement with Major League Soccer to become the newest owner of a franchise soccer team.
A media advisory was sent out Monday morning saying that there would be a major announcement on Wednesday with Blank, MLS Commissioner Don Garber along with Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and Frank Poe, the executive director of the Georgia World Congress Center Authority about the future of soccer in Atlanta.
By Maria Saporta
Published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on April 4, 2014
Goodbye Cobb County. For the first time in 40 years, John Williams— the legendary apartment developer and metro power broker — will not be based in Cobb County.
Williams signed a lease on March 28 to move his current company — Preferred Apartment Communities — from the One Overton Park building where he has been for 10 years to the Medici building on Northside Drive in the city of Atlanta.
By Maria Saporta
Becoming CEO of the Atlanta Hawks is “every boy’s dream,” said Steve Koonin, president of Turner Entertainment Networks.
The Atlanta Hawks announced on Sunday that Koonin will be the new CEO of the Atlanta Hawks and Philips Arena — a move aimed at strengthening the brand of the basketball team as well as focusing on more strategic plans for the organization.
“We just felt we needed a CEO who could step out of our day-to-day operations, both on the business side and the basketball side,” said Bruce Levenson, the majority owner of the Atlanta Hawks, in a telephone interview Sunday night.
By Maria Saporta
As the three-day Civil Rights Summit unfolded at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, one thing was abundantly clear.
Atlanta and its leaders were well represented during the event.
The summit began on Tuesday with Georgia’s own — former President Jimmy Carter, who spoke about his own evolution of growing up in a small rural town during the age of segregation. All his playmates were black, but they lived separate and unequal lives.
By Maria Saporta
Published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on April 4, 2014
At the March board meeting of the Metro Atlanta Chamber, 2014 Chairman Richard Anderson issued a call to action.
“We are going to have to step up as a business community and take a much more active role in stopping this social legislation that doesn’t help us in the global marketplace,” Anderson, the CEO of Delta Air Lines Inc., told the top- tier group of business leaders meeting behind closed doors.
By Maria Saporta
For the last couple of months, an international movement has been getting a foothold in Atlanta — a global movement for compassion.
On Feb. 3, the City of Atlanta officially became a Compassionate City; and a few weeks later, the City of Clarkston also joined the movement. On Monday night, Decatur became the Compassionate City in Georgia.
In recognition of the growing spirit of compassion in Atlanta, the founder of the United Nations sanctioned Charter for Compassion International, which was passed in 2009, and the organization’s executive director, were in town on April 3 and 4 to build new partnerships in town.
After decades of being ignored and abused, Proctor Creek’s time has finally arrived.
Proctor Creek begins downtown in the concrete jungle located around the railroad gulch and the Georgia Dome. Like all good headwaters of creeks, it only comes alive during major storms, and even then the runoff often finds it way to the low spots of the Vine City neighborhood.
The Proctor Creek disappears into tunnels off and on during its journey to the Chattahoochee River — becoming a vital part of our city’s water system.
By Douglas Sams and Maria Saporta
Published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on April 4, 2014
The Atlanta Hawks aren’t sitting on the bench as the city’s other pro teams try to lure more fans with new stadiums and entertainment venues.
By Maria Saporta
The website Philly.com reported Sunday that Atlanta will receive the next franchise of the of Major League Soccer.
It is no secret that Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank has been involved in detailed discussions with MLS to get an expansion team to Atlanta in time to play in the $1.2 billion stadium in 2017.
Philly.com’s Jonathan Tannenwald quoted multiple sources saying that Atlanta would become the 22nd MLS franchise (not Miami which is still trying to put together a stadium deal).
By Maria Saporta
In a clear legal victory for Bernice King, the attorneys for the King Estate have been disqualified from the case involving the right of her two brothers being able to sell Martin Luther King Jr.’s Nobel Peace Prize and his personal traveling Bible.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney issued a ruling late April 2 disqualifying the King Estate’s lead counsel, William B. Hill Jr., and his firm, Polsinelli PC, from representing the plaintiff in this case.
“I just think this was the best decision,” Bernice King said during a reception celebrating the opening of the Kinsey exhibit at the Atlanta History Center Thursday evening. “There was definitely a conflict of interest.”
By Maria Saporta
Published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on March 28, 2014
The opening date for the National Center for Civil and Human Rights has slipped a few weeks with a soft opening now planned for May 30 and a grand public opening on June 23.
Originally plans had been to have the new attraction open on May 22 before the Memorial Day holiday weekend.
By Maria Saporta
The long-time president of the Home Depot Foundation — Kelly Caffarelli — has decided to leave the company, according to an internal announcement that was made earlier this week.
The company already has named a successor. Gaven Gregory has been picked to be executive director of the Home Depot Foundation and the Homer Fund. Gavin, a decorated Iraq war veteran, is considered to be a good fit for the foundation, which in the last couple of years has made a significant commitment to help the nation’s veterans.
By Maria Saporta
A new CEO of the Carter Center has been named by its board of trustees, according to an announcement made Tuesday afternoon by the Atlanta-based organization.
Ambassador Mary Ann Peters will become the Carter Center’s new CEO on Sept. 2, succeeding Dr. John Hardman, who has held the position since 1992.
Peters, served as the U.S. ambassador to Bangladesh from 2000 to 2003 and as the fourth provost of the United States Naval War College on Sept. 18, 2008.
MARTA galvanized the vision of dozens of developers and civic leaders who want to dedicate their energies on a handful of Atlanta projects in the upcoming year.
The Urban Land Institute’s Livable Communities Council spent all of March 26 at the Ritz Carlton Atlanta working on ideas on where they could have the greatest impact on the future development of Atlanta.
This is the first time that the reconfigured group has gotten together since the Livable Communities Coalition merged with the Urban Land Institute. Developer David Allman helped orchestrate that merger, and Mark Toro, managing partner of North American Properties, is the new LCC chair.
By Maria Saporta
To avoid a possible stand-off between the Estate of Martin Luther King Jr. and the soon-to-open National Center for Civil and Human Rights, Andrea Young has taken a leave from the board of the attraction now scheduled to open on May 30.
Andrea Young is executive director of the Andrew Young Foundation, which is named after her father, the former mayor of Atlanta who also was an ambassador to the United Nations as well as a civil rights leader who worked side-by-side Martin Luther King Jr.
By Maria Saporta
Former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin gave a refreshingly candid interview to an online national journal about how she wished she had done more to address the lack of upward income mobility in the city while she was leading the city.
The article appeared in related publications — “The National Journal” and “The Atlantic Cities: Place Matters” — on March 24. It was written by Nancy Cook, who asked Franklin about the recent report from the Equality of Opportunity Project that ranked Atlanta as one of least likely cities in the country for low-income children to be able to climb out of poverty.
Franklin told Cook that poverty in Atlanta “has been pretty intractable” going back to the 1970s.
