Category: David Pendered

Metro Atlanta continues to bob along in the debris left by the Great Recession, according to two recent reports.

The Atlanta Regional Commission used the word “muted” to describe the growth rate of 10-county metro Atlanta during the past year. In addition, the number of residential building permits issued was less than a third of their 30-year average.

The Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank reports that growth rates and expectations are moderating in home construction, mortgage refinancing and consumer spending. Overall, the broader economy of the Deep South continues to expand modestly.

With little fanfare, Georgia has entered a new era in which road construction is to be based less on geography and more on the need for congestion relief.

The step isn’t expected to be a panacea because Georgia doesn’t have any more money than before to spend on road improvements. However, the measure does provide the state with flexibility to target the resources it does have in areas where they’re in greatest demand, according to advocates including Gov. Nathan Deal.

The board of Georgia’s Department of Transportation voted last week to adopt a list of designated freight corridors. Now, these corridors can be upgraded without the legal constraint of balancing highway spending among congressional districts. The list was envisioned in House Bill 202, which Deal signed in April.

A new commissioner took charge Thursday of the state department that oversees a number of programs that influence local planning and economic development.

Gretchen Corbin replaces Mike Beatty as commissioner for the Department of Community Affairs. Corbin served most recently in the state’s Department of Economic Development – where she worked on teams that convinced Caterpillar and Baxter International to open manufacturing facilities in Georgia. Beatty will lead a non-profit organization engaged in workforce development.

DCA’s most recent work in Atlanta was to create an Opportunity Zone in sections of the Cleveland Avenue/Metropolitan Parkway area. The designation aims to spur businesses to hire by providing a tax credit for each job created, provided that at least two jobs are created.

Ed Renford used to say he was glad he had his stroke while at work at Grady Memorial Hospital.

Renford, who was Grady’s CEO when he succumbed in 2000, figured that he was in the right place to receive the best possible treatment for Georgia’s third-highest cause of death. Renford recovered and returned to work until he chose to retire in 2003.

Now, Grady’s credentials have been upgraded in stroke care. Grady’s Marcus Stroke and Neuroscience Center has been designated an Advanced Comprehensive Stroke Center by the Joint Commission, a national accrediting entity. The designation affirms that Grady has specific skills to treat the most complex stroke cases, according to a description by the Joint Commission.

Atlanta seems to have an endless capacity to talk about the state of sidewalk repair.

By most accounts, the state of repair is poor. The repair bill for more than 1,200 miles of sidewalks is pegged above $150 million. The city’s policy is to dun adjacent property owners for repairs to sidewalks and gutters, though this hasn’t proven to be effective.

The city’s challenge isn’t just maintaining sidewalks. Keeping up with their location is a problem. The Atlanta City Council may add to that burden every time it waives the city’s requirement for subdivision developers to install sidewalks in front of a project. Instead, the council routinely votes to have the sidewalks built elsewhere.

Buckhead has joined Atlanta’s Better Buildings Challenge and added an additional 15 million square feet of commercial space to the city’s efficiency program, which now covers 65 million square feet.

The BBC was launched by the Obama administration in 2011 to promote energy and water efficiency in commercial and public buildings. The national goal is to reduce the energy intensity in commercial and public buildings by 20 percent by 2020.

Livable Buckhead was a founding partner of the city’s program and it formally began participating July 17. When it joined, Buckhead brought an amount of commercial space into Atlanta’s program that’s greater than the entire BBC program in Denver and Fort Worth, according to a statement from the city.

Atlanta-based Portman Holdings has lost its bid to lead the master development team for the planned $1 billion upgrade of what is to become the 52-acre Miami Beach Convention Center district.

The project went instead to a team led by Dan Tishman, the New York-based developer of projects including the World Trade Center and Disney’s Epcot Center. The Miami Beach Commission voted July 17 for Tishman’s proposal, submitted as Tishman South Beach ACE.

The Miami Beach project is that city’s version of Atlanta’s deal for a new Falcons stadium. Both projects are priced around $1 billion; both call for public financing through a hotel/motel tax; both contemplate renewing part of an aged urban core; and both promise to reconnect the new developments with surrounding communities.

The Army colonel who will take over the Savannah district Friday, and the sensitive task of the harbor deepening project, brings a wealth of experience managing complex engineering scenarios, according to his military resume.

The executive director of the Georgia Ports Authority, Curtis Foltz, said Thursday that he expects the new district commander – Col. Thomas Tickner – will continue the efforts of his predecessor, Col. Jeffrey Hall, who oversaw two important reports that propelled the deepening project.

The change in command is a routine event for a district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, but it comes at a sensitive time. Federal funding for the planned harbor deepening project hangs in the balance, even as Georgia has committed $230 million toward the project.