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 and Doug Sams
Friday, September 25, 2009
Cousins Properties Inc., one of the largest real estate companies in the Southeast, is entering a new era — armed with a new CEO and a third of a billion dollars in new capital.
Larry Gellerstedt III, who became the CEO of Cousins (NYSE: CUZ) on July 1 after the accelerated departure of CEO Tom Bell, is demonstrating his understated style of leadership.
By Maria Saporta
We now know at least three gubernatorial candidates who will be seeking support from the environmental community.
At Wednesday night’s Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper’s Annual Patron Appreciation Dinner, two Democratic candidates for governor and one Republican candidate came — each making sure to work the room among some of the region’s top environmental leaders.
The first candidate I saw upon
By Maria Saporta
At today’s Atlanta Regional Commission board meeting, three men declared their intention to seek the chairmanship of the 10-county planning organization.
The three, in alphabetical order, are: Charles Bannister, chairman of the Gwinnett County Commission; Tad Leithead, a former executive with Cousins Properties who is now building his own public policy and lobbying firm; and Jack Smith, the chairman of the Fayette County Commission.
One of those three, or possibly someone
By Maria Saporta
Metro Atlanta is facing a tremendous transition in leadership, beginning with the chairman of the Atlanta Regional Commission.
Sam Olens, who has been chairman of the 10-county body since December 2004, is planning to step down so he can launch his campaign to run for state Attorney General.
Olens, who is also chairman of the Cobb Commission, has served two, two-year terms as ARC’s chairman.
At ARC’s board meeting this coming
By Maria Saporta
Friday, September 18, 2009
Two global organizations are partnering with each other — United Parcel Service Inc. and UNICEF.
The Atlanta-based UPS Foundation is making a two-year, $1 million commitment to UNICEF to improve the emergency response capacity for its disaster preparedness program in the Asia-Pacific region.
The gift, which includes $700,000 in cash and $300,000
When making the case for future investment in Atlanta’s cultural institutions, Joe Bankoff brings out the pictures.
Bankoff, president of the Woodruff Arts Center, shows a picture of MIdtown in 1968 soon after the $8 million Memorial Arts Center building was developed along Peachtree Street between 15th and 16th streets.
The photo shows the arts center located in a low-rise community surrounded by low-rise buildings and single-family homes. The first high-rise in the community came a year later — the first Colony Square tower.
And then Bankoff shows off his photos of Midtown today. It shows a cluster of skyscrapers all encircling the Woodruff Arts
By Maria Saporta
Internationally-renowned Atlanta architect and developer John Portman was given the Lifetime Achievement Award Thursday evening at the revived Governor’s International Awards.
The awards were co-sponsored by the World Trade Center Atlanta and the Atlanta Business Chronicle.
For Portman, it was an opportunity to look back at the evolution of the global profile of Atlanta. He started design and construction on the Atlanta Merchandise Mart in the late 1950s and it opened in
Brian Leary remembers hearing about the Atlanta BeltLine from its very earliest days when he was working on his master’s in city planning at Georgia Tech.
Ryan Gravel, a fellow student, had been working on a master’s thesis about a 22-mile railroad corridor that encircled the inner city of Atlanta and how it could be redeveloped into one of the greatest urban revitalization projects in the city’s history.
“To me, there’s no greater opportunity to positively impact the future of Atlanta and its quality of life than the BeltLine,” Leary said in an interview Wednesday,
By Maria Saporta
The board of Atlanta Beltline Inc. has just selected Brian Leary, vice president of design and development for Jacoby Development and Atlantic Station, as its new president and CEO.
Leary is succeeding Terri Montague, who stepped down Sept. 1, but has remained as a consultant until her replacement was named. Montague was the founding CEO of Atlanta BeltLine Inc., the public entity in charge of developing the 22-mile railroad corridor that encircles Atlanta’s
By Maria Saporta
The Atlanta Streetcar — through the Georgia Transit Connector partnership — is making its best pitch to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
A public-private partnership between the City of Atlanta, MARTA, the Atlanta Downtown Improvement District and the Midtown Improvement District today is submitting its application for federal stimulus funding.
The proposal for up to $300 million for “shovel-ready” funding includes two
By Maria Saporta
Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent has lived in some of the greatest cities of the world. So when he talks about Atlanta’s potential, it’s worth paying close attention.
“Atlanta has an opportunity to become a world-class sustainable city defined by smart growth, quality transportation infrastructure and world-class educators,” Kent said. “The greatest cities in the world are moving in that direction fast. Atlanta has an incredible opportunity take a lead.”
Kent spoke those words at Monday’s
By Maria Saporta
Cobb County Chairman Sam Olens and DeKalb County CEO Burrell Ellis stood like bookends at a recent DeKalb Chamber of Commerce’s breakfast that provided a snapshot of the region.
Despite being of different races and different political parties, the similarities of the two men is striking. Both are roughly the same age — in their early 50s; both are lawyers. And both appreciate the importance of the region as a critical part of being leaders in their individual counties.
The Atlanta region is really a mosaic of neighborhoods.
That was the underlying theme of the first annual Regional Neighborhood Summit held on Saturday at the Loudermilk Conference Center and put on by the Civic League for Regional Atlanta.
Surprisingly, nearly 500 people came on a beautiful Saturday to spend several hours indoors to meet their counterparts from throughout the region and exchange ideas on how to improve their communities.
“Where the action is these days is at the local neighborhood level and at the regional level,” said Myles Greene Smith, executive director of the Civic League. “We are trying to get
By Maria Saporta
Friday, September 11, 2009
The Southern Center for International Studies, an Atlanta institution since 1962, is in a major state of transition.
The center’s headquarters at 320 West Paces Ferry Road recently was sold to the Watson-Brown Foundation of Thomson, Ga., which plans to restore the historic residence designed by famous Atlanta architect Philip Trammell Shutze.
By Maria Saporta
Two buildings face each other across the street — one a symbol of despair, one a symbol of hope.
On the north side of Memorial Drive downtown is the Atlanta city jail, officially known as the Atlanta Department of Corrections. It’s a building that houses broken laws and crippled lives
And on the south side of the street is Welcome House — a perfectly-named place where people are encouraged to rebuild their lives.
None of that symbolism is lost on
By Maria Saporta
More on the 14th Street bridge. Little did I know when I wrote a short item about the reopening of the 14th Street bridge that it would generate such thoughtful commentary from friends and readers.
According to people familiar with the project, the $88.5 million project cost identified by the Georgia Department of Transportation did not reflect the true actual cost.
It cost the state up to $106 million to acquire the right of way for the project,
By Maria Saporta
Friday, September 4, 2009
After five years, David Ratcliffe stepped down as chairman of the Georgia Research Alliance at the organization’s quarterly board meeting on Sept. 2. Ratcliffe is chairman and CEO of Southern Co.
He was succeeded by Bill Linginfelter, area president for Georgia and South Carolina for Regions Bank, who has been serving as vice chairman.
John Rice, vice chairman of General Electric Co., was elected as the new vice chairman.
By Maria Saporta
Friday, September 4, 2009
In the end, it all comes down to memories.
On Nov. 16, 2006, Jill Albert passed away from cancer entrusting her husband, Jon Albert, and their two young children to carry on her legacy of family and fond memories.
That’s how the Jack & Jill Late Stage Cancer Foundation was formed. The national foundation based in Atlanta provides families with a terminally ill parent a special gift of lasting memories.
Just when you think it can’t get any worse…
For years, metro Atlanta has been seeking new funding for transportation. The last couple of years, the Atlanta region has been begging the state legislature for the right to pass a one-cent sales tax on itself to tackle its transportation problems.
But for the last two years, a proposed transportation funding bill has died in the last few hours of the session. This past session, it failed because the Senate favored a regional approach while the House favored a statewide sales tax, and the two houses couldn’t resolve their differences.
Such inaction infuriated metro Atlanta’s leaders. The business community even went so far as telling legislators that if they
By Maria Saporta
A ribbon-cutting ceremony to reopen the 14th Street this morning was moved to the nearby Courtyard by Marriott because of rain.
And even after the ribbon-cutting, the bridge would not be opened for a couple of more hours, a disappointment to several folks in cars who were waiting to be among the first to traverse the new bridge.
Speech after speech heralded this new east-west connection between Georgia
