Articles by David Pendered
While political pundits review Georgia’s elections outcomes, Wall Street analysts have focused on the passage of an amendment to the Georgia Constitution that’s the first of its kind in the nation.
Moody’s Investors Services issued a report Friday that raises a cautionary flag over the amendment that caps Georgia’s individual income tax rate at 6 percent. The limit restricts the state’s ability to raise revenues, if necessary, the report observes.
A sense of the possible evidently floated over MARTA’s board of directors meeting Thursday.
Significantly, the board voted to defer a vote on privatizing the paratransit system – a vote that will enable MARTA’s staff to consider a cost-cutting proposal from the transit union.
The board also cast a vote that, at this point, was largely symbolic: To enter into a number of agreements to provide transit service in Clayton County that area related to the vote by Clayton County voters to approve a sales tax to join the transit system.
Social media is enabling the Georgia Tech analysis of Memorial Drive to proceed at a startling rate of speed.
As various findings appear on a Facebook page and are shared via other social media, interested parties are providing feedback to the Tech students in almost real time. Portions of a report presented Oct. 27 are already substantially out of date, Tech professor of practice Mike Dobbins said Tuesday.
The Atlanta BeltLine is involved in two projects that could add 22-story structures next to the Historic Fourth Ward Park, and eight-story apartment buildings a half-mile north of Piedmont Park.
At Historic Fourth Ward Park, the BeltLine is seeking to rezone land to a classification that allows buildings up to 225 feet high. The site includes the Masquerade nightclub, located in a stone structure built in 1900.
Oceanic shipping through the Arctic Circle isn’t likely to have much impact on global transport and investments in harbors, including the deepening of the Port of Savannah, a new report suggests.
There has been plenty of buzz about whether shipping along the fabled Northwest Passage will be a disruptor. The theory is that global warming will shrink sea ice and allow freighters to navigate the route. The Arctic Institute’s report issued in October dismisses such talk as, “overstated.”
As it executes a business strategy that includes reducing its footprint in Atlanta, Cousins Properties Inc. posted a key measure of profitability Wednesday that exceeded Walls Street expectations.
The strategy could include bringing in a joint venture partner for the company’s trophy tower in downtown Atlanta, 191 Peachtree Street.
Reducing the speed limit on Memorial Drive from 35 mph to 25 mph could improve safety, cut tailpipe emissions, boost the roadway’s capacity, and even reduce trip times because traffic would flow more smoothly.
Another startling discovery associated with the analysis of Memorial Drive, being conducted this autumn by Georgia Tech graduate students, is the high degree of buy-in from Atlanta city councilmembers who represent the area.
The musician lockout at the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra was foreshadowed almost a year ago in a rating action by Moody’s Investors Service.
Moody’s message was clear: Either ASO’s fiscal drain on Robert W. Woodruff Arts Center, Inc. would be reduced, or Moody’s may lower the credit rating on $188.26 million in debt Woodruff sold in 2009. Moody’s expected action this autumn.
Ebola tests have been conducted on 27 passengers at Atlanta’s airport and none tested positive for the disease, according to the latest available federal report.
The 27 who were tested in Atlanta were among a total of 521 passengers tested as they traveled through one of the five U.S. airports that have implemented enhanced screening for Ebola.
A border dispute appears to be breaking out in DeKalb County, involving Brookhaven and two cities that haven’t even been incorporated.
The issue is the tax base represented by two tracts of commercial land whose major players have requested to be annexed into Brookhaven – Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, and Executive Park.
The basin of the Chattahoochee River is threatened by stormwater runoff that carries hazardous materials from industrial sites into the water system, a new report shows.
This situation prompted the Georgia Water Coalition to include the Chattahoochee River in its 2014 edition of Georgia’s Dirty Dozen, a list of water pollution problems across the state that was released Wednesday. The Chattahoochee has made the list since the first edition, in 2011.
The release of Georgia’s Dirty Dozen also served as a changing of the guard for the Chattahoochee Riverkeeper. Sally Bethea, founding executive director, monitored a conference call to discuss the report. But it was Jason Ulseth, the incoming riverkeeper, who fielded questions from reporters.
Less than 10 percent of those who applied for a job-training program initiated by Falcons team owner Arthur Blank passed the drug test required for acceptance to the program, according to Atlanta City Councilmember Ivory L. Young, Jr.
Young cited the figure to illustrate the challenge of job training for individuals who have troubles past or present. Of 160 applicants, 18 were accepted, he said.
Signs of the discriminatory lending practice called redlining have reemerged in metro Atlanta, according to a new analysis of home sale prices.
Georgia Tech Professor Dan Immergluck reached this conclusion in his study that determines the extent of the uneven recovery of home prices in metro Atlanta.
A new round of economic reports indicates Atlanta and the rest of the southeast continue on a trajectory of “modest” growth.
Two new reports from Atlanta Federal Reserve portray the region’s economy in relatively good terms. These reports join the muddled mix that shows the foreclosure rate has fallen, while the number of workers in metro Atlanta has decreased and the number of unemployed has increased since the spring.
One of the more photogenic parks planned for the Atlanta BeltLine is also the largest, and plans for moving it forward may be starting to shape.
The old Bellwood Quarry is soon to be the sole subject of a redevelopment review committee to be formed by the Atlanta City Council, according to legislation led by Councilmember Michael Julian Bond. The council is slated to approve the proposal as part of the consent agenda on Oct. 20.
Of political note, Bond omitted council President Ceasar Mitchell, or his designee, from the committee. The council president often is represented on committees with purview over topics of citywide or regional interest, such as the BeltLine.
Atlanta’s workforce training program should help residents learn the skills needed to get jobs in Atlanta’s film industry, an Atlanta councilmember with a unique perspective said Tuesday.
“The movie industry is hot in the city of Atlanta,” Atlanta Councilmember Joyce Sheperd said in a meeting of the council’s Community Development and Human Resources Committee.
Georgia’s Board of Regents have expanded an aggressive, two-pronged plan to create an additional 250,000 college graduates by 2025.
The goal is to propel Georgia’s population toward the type of education necessary to attract quality employers, as well as to manage civic and cultural responsibilities.
The city of Atlanta is “showing signs” that it is rebounding from the recession, according to a new report from Moody’s Investors Service.
Among the signs Moody’s identifies: The tax base is inching up; foreclosures are down to pre-recession levels; the unemployment rate is still stuck above 10 percent, but city officials attributed it to people moving here to look for work rather than to locals unable to find a job.
The report could be a guide in gauging the economy in other parts of the region, though Moody’s did examine only the city of Atlanta in order to rate the credit of a $60 million bond package Atlanta plans to sell Oct. 28.
At some point in the battle with the alligator, the hunters probably stopped thinking about the record book.
Which may be just as well. Because the alligator they killed after a four-hour fight last week was nearly a foot shorter than the record-setting lizard taken last year.
But the alligator that hunters took Oct. 2 from Lake Blackshear did measure 13 feet and weigh in at 660 pounds, according to media reports. The beast took six bullets to kill before it could be dragged to a small boat and motored ashore.
Atlanta is about to embark on another assessment of brownfields that are located in strategic locations the city seeks to prime for redevelopment.
The first site on the list is the Proctor Creek watershed area. The new Falcons stadium is in the Proctor Creek basin, which also encompasses a portion of a planned $30 million urban renewal program to be funded by Atlanta and the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation.
The city has allocated $392,000 for the project. Proposals are due Nov. 5. The first report is due April 30, 2015 and the federal funding for the project expires Sept. 30, 2016, according to the request for proposals.
