MARTA and the Georgia Department of Transportation are advancing efforts to improve mobility around the I-285/Ga. 400 interchange and northward along Ga. 400.
Category: Sections
Posted inDavid Pendered, Latest News, Main Slider
Atlanta’s new bike officer led effort to redevelop Rev. James Orange Park
Atlanta’s newly appointed chief bicycle officer has a background of collaborating with neighborhood leaders that she gained in what became the $2 million effort to rebuild the Rev. James Orange Park in the Oakland City community of southwest Atlanta.
Posted inLatest News, Main Slider, Maria Saporta
Central Atlanta Progress hires journalist-activist George Chidi as ‘social impact director’
In a post to Facebook friends over the weekend, George Chidi wrote: “Well I’ve been here a week, and they haven’t fired me, so I suppose I should say something about it. I have a new job.”
Chidi, a social activist and journalist with an MBA from Georgia Tech, is the new “social impact director” for Central Atlanta Progress and the Atlanta Downtown Improvement District.
Posted inATL Business Chronicle
Chick-fil-A plans first store on Atlanta’s westside
By Maria Saporta
As published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on October 2, 2015.
Earlier this year, Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy made a plea to local leaders to help revitalize the blighted communities on the west side of downtown as a way to bridge the divide between the haves and the have-nots.
Now Cathy is putting money where his mouth is. Chick-fil-A Inc. will be locating one of its stores at the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and Joseph E. Lowery Boulevard next to the existing Walmart. As the first Chick-fil-A in that part of town, the store is expected to create at least 50 to 60 jobs in that community.
Posted inLatest News, Maria Saporta
Veritiv names two key executives to its management team
Atlanta-based Veritiv, a relatively new business destined to be listed as a Fortune 500 company in 2016, is solidifying its top management team.
As an industry leader in business-to-business distribution solutions, Veritiv opened its doors on July 1, 2014 following the merger of International Paper’s xpedx division and Unisource Worldwide.
Posted inDavid Pendered, Latest News, Main Slider
At planned Oakland City Station project, MARTA offers significant aid to developer
MARTA is offering to provide significant assistance to the developer of a planned mixed use community at its Oakland City Station. The neighborhood has a high poverty rate, is losing residents, and has just seen most of Fort McPherson turn from a planned mixed use neighborhood into Tyler Perry’s next film studio.
Posted inLatest News, Main Slider, Maria Saporta
City leaders hope Trans-Pacific Partnership deal will shine light on Atlanta
City leaders hope that the successful negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal that was reached in Atlanta over the weekend will bode well for future international gatherings.
The United States and 11 other Pacific Rim nations announced on Monday that they had agreed to the largest regional economic pact in history – an agreement that could set the stage for global trade for others.
Posted inWABE
Commentary: Underground Atlanta sale is a deal city can’t miss
Developer T. Scott Smith is willing to invest up to $400 million to revitalize Underground Atlanta and its surrounding area.
And he is anxious to take ownership of the property. Right now his company is managing the Underground retail center for the city but receiving no fees for the work. That’s only one reason he wants the deal to close.
Posted inColumns, Guest Column, Main Slider, WABE
Boys’ High legacy lives on through $800,000 gift to Grady High
By Guest Columnist LEON S. EPLAN, 1946 graduate of Boys’ High of Atlanta and former planning commissioner for the City of Atlanta
Boys’ High closed in 1947 after providing more than 7,000 students with an excellent college preparatory education. Since then, the Atlanta Boys’ High School Alumni Association has been making significant contributions to Grady High School – the site of Boys’ High.
Posted inDavid Pendered, Latest News, Main Slider
Atlanta poised to accept $250,000 to create a chief overseer of city’s bicycling programs
The Atlanta City Council is slated to approve legislation Monday that accepts funding to hire a chief bicycle officer, who is to oversee the city’s comprehensive efforts to promote cycling.
Posted inLatest News, Main Slider, Maria Saporta
University presidents from around the nation in Atlanta to expand climate commitment
Agnes Scott College will be the site of a major announcement Monday morning on an expanded commitment by U.S. colleges and universities to combat climate change.
Elizabeth Kiss, president of Agnes Scott College, said that in the past decade, nearly 700 institutions of higher learning have signed on to the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC).
Posted inATL Business Chronicle
City’s sale of Underground Atlanta delayed
By Maria Saporta
As published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on October 2, 2015.
The sale of Underground Atlanta has been delayed until Jan. 15 as the city of Atlanta works through what Mayor Kasim Reed described as a “solvable problem.” The city of Atlanta’s sale of Underground Atlanta to WRS Inc., a real estate company based in Mount Pleasant, S.C., for $25.75 million included a parking facility that is owned by the state of Georgia.
As part of the Underground deal, the city and the state were supposed to have swapped property so that the parking facility could be included in the sale.
Posted inATL Business Chronicle
Column: Hands On Atlanta set to celebrate its 25th anniversary
By Maria Saporta
As published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on September 25, 2015.
Twenty-five years page ago, a grassroots in Atlanta nonprofit planted a seed that has turned into a national movement.
That seed was Hands On Atlanta. On Oct. 3, Hands On Atlanta will celebrate its 25th anniversary with Hands On Atlanta Day when as many as 6,000 people and more than 80 companies will work on 100 community projects throughout the greater Atlanta area.
“It has become a way of life,” said Gina Simpson, president and CEO of Hands On Atlanta. “It’s not just monetary. It’s a way to make giving a way of life. We have seen children as young as five years old come out and volunteer.”
Posted inWABE
Commentary: Piedmont Park is being ‘loved to death’
True confessions: I love Music Midtown.
I have been to every Music Midtown since it began at 10th and Peachtree in 1994. It was such a disappointment when Music Midtown disappeared between 2006 and 2010 ─ leaving Atlanta without a signature music festival.
Posted inDavid Pendered, Latest News, Main Slider
Atlanta’s program to end homelessness names first ED, a former St. Joseph’s executive
Atlanta has hired a former executive with St. Joseph’s Health System to implement the city’s evolving effort to prevent and end homelessness in Atlanta, an effort that’s been underway more than two years.
Posted inATL Business Chronicle
Developer Jim Cumming donates downtown office tower for high school
By Maria Saporta
As published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on September 25, 2015.
Atlanta developer Jim Cumming has done well over the decades buying and selling real estate — not giving it away.
So when Bill Garrett, president of the Cristo Rey Atlanta Jesuit High School, looked Cumming straight in the eye and asked if he would give the nonprofit the seven-story Oxford Industries building in downtown Atlanta, Cumming quickly answered: “Impossible. No way. We will do something. But we are not giving you the building.”
Then a couple of nights later, Cumming woke up at 3 a.m. thinking about Cristo Rey and Garrett.
Posted inDavid Pendered, Latest News, Main Slider
Georgia Tech PhD candidate took the lead in announcing discovery of water on Mars
A Georgia Tech student was at the center of a presentation Monday at which NASA confirmed evidence that water flows on modern day Mars.
Posted inLatest News, Main Slider, Maria Saporta
Atlanta celebrates win of $30 million Choice grant from HUD
A united team welcomed Julian Castro, secretary of the U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Monday morning when he announced that Atlanta had been awarded a competitive $30 million Choice grant.
Castro said he is pleased with all the economic development that has been drawn to Atlanta, but HUD wants to make sure that “progress happens and every neighborhood benefits, that every section of Atlanta can share in that prosperity.”
Posted inLatest News, Main Slider, Maria Saporta
Neighborhood Summit: Michael Thurmond describes how education transformed his life
The theme of the sixth annual Neighborhood Summit – the largest to date – was “Embracing the Power of Education.”
The keynote address on the “Power of Education” was delivered Michael Thurmond, who recently stepped down as the interim superintendent of DeKalb County Schools.
Thurmond said he’s a living example of the transformational power of education – as the descendant of three generations of illiterate cotton sharecroppers.
Posted inDavid Pendered, Latest News, Main Slider
Georgia Tech student at center of international intrigue over whether NASA has found evidence of water on Mars
The presence of a Georgia Tech student on a NASA panel on Monday is fueling international speculation that NASA may announce it has discovered evidence of water on Mars. NASA did confirm that water flows on today’s Mars and the student was quoted at length in NASA’s statement.
