By Maria Saporta
What do the Atlanta Community Food Bank, MedShare and Lifecycle Building Center have in common?
Each nonprofit provides an opportunity for products to be used or reused, and each one of them prevent products from being thrown away and ending up in a landfill.
Executives from each organization were part of a panel discussion on Friday at the Sustainable Atlanta Roundtable on “Transforming the World through Reuse.”
By Maria Saporta
Published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on Friday, June 7, 2013
Fifty years ago, Sam Williams came to Atlanta for the first time as a Georgia Tech freshman from a small Tennessee town of 900 people “where you knew whose check was good and whose husband wasn’t.”
When his parents dropped him off at the doorstep of his Tech dorm, Williams saw Atlanta as “a great big, scary place.” He was a young man leaving the farm and a 4-H scholarship in Tennessee to study electrical engineering at Georgia Tech.
By Maria Saporta
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said he is on the verge of making an offer to acquire Friendship Baptist Church to make room for a new Atlanta Falcons football stadium.
“My issue was to make sure the Congregational support was above two-thirds,” Reed said. “We are getting there.”
When asked about the timing, Reed said it will be in a matter of days.
“I want to move this forward,” Reed said, adding that the city would be presenting an offer to Friendship “definitely within the next 10 days.”
The Atlanta Falcons are anxiously waiting on the outcome of the city’s negotiations to buy Friendship as well as the culmination of negotiations that the Georgia World Congress Center is having with Mount Vernon Baptist Church, which is across the street from Friendship.
By Maria Saporta
The City of Atlanta improved its “park score” in 2013 — earning two-and-a-half park benches from the Trust for Public Land’s ParkScore index, an improvement from its two bench score in 2012.
Atlanta was one of only four cities to improve its park bench rating in the 2013 ranking. The other three cities that improved their park bench ratings were New York, Long Beach and Fresno.
Still the Atlanta results were mixed. The Trust increased the number of U.S. cities in its ranking from 40 to 50 cities. As a result, Atlanta’s ranking went from being 26th among 40 cities to being tied for 31st among 50 cities.
One of the new cities that was added to the list was Minneapolis, which actually bumped San Francisco to be ranked as the nation’s top park system, according a press release from the Trust for Public Land. Minneapolis was the only city to have a perfect score of five park benches.
By Maria Saporta
After 17 years as president of the Metro Atlanta Chamber, Sam A. Williams told the organization’s executive committee at a specially-called meeting Tuesday morning that he will retire at the end of the year or when his replacement is hired.
Williams, 68, has been one of the leading voices of the Atlanta business community for decades — at the Metro Atlanta Chamber, three years as president of Central Atlanta Progress and 22 years at the Portman Companies.
In his role as president of the Metro Atlanta Chamber, Williams has been instrumental in a number of civic initiatives — helping save Grady Hospital; working to change the Georgia flag; meeting the standards of the Clean Water Act; trying to reduce congestion and increase investment in transportation; revamping the region’s economic development strategies; improving the area’s quality of life; and trying to improve the outcomes of students attending public schools.
By Maria Saporta
National Public Radio is committed to living up to the “national” part of its name.
That was one of the messages that Gary Knell, president and CEO of NPR, shared with the Rotary Club of Atlanta during his talk on Monday.
“When you have journalists based only in Washington and New York, you are not hearing what is going on in the country,” Knell said. “We are going to rely more on our partners like WABE. We have got an army of 1,200 journalists around the country at 270 stations.”
Knell said NPR already has become a powerful force in the field of journalism. It has 38 million listeners per week, which is more than the subscribers of 78 of nation’s top newspapers combined.
By Maria Saporta
Published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on Friday, May 31, 2013
The Atlanta Women’s Foundation was in no hurry to hire a new executive director when Barbara Mosacchio moved to Chicago last July.
Instead the board decided to look at every aspect of the foundation — its mission, its strategic direction, its fundraising, its grantmaking and its greatest potential — before designing a wish list of the person who could best lead the influential organization.
“We’ve been calling it our ‘year zero,’ ” said Danita Knight, who has been serving as board chair during this process. “The final piece was hiring an outstanding person as our executive director.”
The board of Atlanta Women’s Foundation has named Kelly Dolan, a longtime Atlanta nonprofit executive, as its new executive director beginning July 1.
By Maria Saporta
Another great Atlanta tradition is born.
The Atlanta Braves on Friday launched the beginning of the team’s first-ever Heritage Weekend (May 31 to June 2) as a way to pay tribute to its home city’s Civil Rights legacy.
And the opening luncheon did not disappoint with the presence of legends who broke racial barriers in the world of sports and society in general.
In 2011 and 2012, the Atlanta Braves hosted the Civil Rights Game. But this year, Braves decided to expand the idea into an annual Heritage Weekend and to pay tribute to the team’s own icon — Hank Aaron — with the Hank Aaron Champion for Justice Award.
By Maria Saporta
Rarely do preservation stories in Atlanta end up with happy endings.
But that’s exactly the happy fate of the historic Randolph-Lucas house — a 1924 home in south Buckhead — that has been threatened with demolition several times in recent years.
The solution? The house will be moved from its current location at Peachtree Road and Lindbergh Drive to Atlanta’s Ansley Park neighborhood to a vacant lot at 78 Peachtree Circle later this summer.
The home is being saved thanks to an extraordinary effort that has taken place bettween a host of partners — especially the Buckhead Heritage Society and the new owners of the home — Christoper Jones and Roger Smith, founder of NewTown Partners. They will be returning the mansion to its residential roots for the first time in nearly 20 years.
By Maria Saporta
Published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on Friday, May 24, 2013
Internationally renowned architect and developer John Portman will receive the prestigious 2013 Four Pillar Award from the Council for Quality Growth.
Portman will receive the award on Oct. 10 at a dinner at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta — a trend-setting hotel that he designed — with its unique indoor atrium. It’s a building that launched the Hyatt hotel chain and a building that gave Portman international fame.
But to describe Portman as just an architect or developer is only providing two sides of a multifaceted artist and entrepreneur.
By Maria Saporta
Riding along the BeltLine’s Eastside Trail and around downtown Atlanta over Memorial Day weekend, it was hard to remember a time (really not so long ago) when it was relatively rare to see someone on a bicycle in the city.
I do remember those dare-devil delivery/messenger cyclists who seemed to take their lives in their wheels each time the pedaled around. But people on bicycles seemed to be outside the norm, the odd man or woman out.
So seeing the multitude and diversity of cyclists out and about this weekend made me appreciate the cycling evolution that is taking place in our city. Along the BeltLine, there were so many families with young children on bicycles — finally with a place to ride where parents didn’t have to worry about them being hit by a car.
By Maria Saporta
Published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on Friday, May 24, 2013
HOUSTON – For metro Atlanta leaders who have been used to selling the economic jewel of the Southeast, visiting the largest city in Texas can be a humbling experience.
Houston, the fifth-largest metro area in the country, has been enjoying an economic resurgence that has become the envy of many, including Atlanta, the ninth-largest metro area in the United States.
Houston’s relative economic strength was a point that was brought up repeatedly during the 17th annual LINK visit from May 15 to May 18. The LINK trip involves a group of about 110 regional leaders from Atlanta going to another city to learn from it.
By Maria Saporta
After Home Depot’s annual meeting at the Cobb Galleria Thursday morning, Chairman and CEO Frank Blake was asked how he felt it went.
“It felt different,” Blake said. “This was fun.”
Then he attributed the mood among shareholders to the fact that Home Depot’s stock “is up,” hovering around $80 a share compared to $17 a share not so long ago when the company was facing a leadership transition and a devastating decline in the U.S. economy, especially in the housing market.
But perhaps the real reason the annual meeting felt different was because the rediscovery of the company’s core values and culture was now complete, and that realignment of its roots had been translated to Home Depot’s associates and shareholders.
By Maria Saporta
Former Coca-Cola Chairman and CEO Neville Isdell and his wife Pamela Isdell have donated $3 million to the World Wildlife Fund and the Nature Conservancy to support conservation in Zambia and Namibia.
“We were brought up in Zambia, and we have lived more of our lives in Africa than anywhere else,” Neville Isdell said in a telephone interview late Tuesday evening. “We really wanted to give back to Zambia.”
Isdell also said his family wanted to support the efforts of the Fund and the Nature Conservancy to “bring about reform” in the areas of conservation and game management in Africa.
By Maria Saporta
Published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on Friday, May 17, 2013
ULI Atlanta and the Livable Communities Coalition have agreed to join forces — creating the ULI Atlanta Livable Communities Council.
The Council will be part of the Urban Land Institute’s Atlanta district and will assume the mission of the Livable Communities Coalition (LCC), the nonprofit metro Atlanta advocacy group formed in 2005 to promote smart urban growth.
David Allman, who has served as LCC’s board chair and is the incoming board chair of ULI Atlanta, said combining both entities makes “perfect sense going forward.” Allman, founder of developer Regent Partners, said the two entities have common goals — walkable communities and transit-oriented development (TOD).
By Maria Saporta
The Georgia Port Authority’s executive director is optimistic that federal funding to deepen the Savannah Port will be in place in the next couple of years.
Curtis Foltz, executive director of the Georgia Port Authority, spoke at the Cobb Chamber of Commerce’s Chairman’s Club luncheon Tuesday at the Cobb Energy Center for the Performing Arts.
“We strongly believe that the federal government will step up to the plate in a big way in the Fiscal Year 2015 budget,” Foltz said in response to a question. “We believe it will bubble up to the top.”
By Maria Saporta
An initiative to convene Atlanta-based global health organizations tackled the issue of world hunger Monday at an all-day summit at the J.W. Marriott in Buckhead.
In the second annual “Global Health Summit,” a host of government, nonprofit and business entities embraced a new approach to combat global hunger and malnutrition. Last year’s summit focused on global health and water.
By Maria Saporta and Amy Wenk
Published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on Friday, May 17, 2013
Five architectural teams competed for the highly sought after contract to design the new $1 billion retractable-roof stadium for the Atlanta Falcons.
Kansas City, Mo., firm 360 Architecture won the contract, partly for its novel and ground-breaking ideas on two retractable-roof designs.
But the four other architectural teams also presented worthy and unique concepts in stadium design. Some mapped out ways to connect the structure with downtown and the surrounding communities of Vine City, English Avenue and Castleberry Hill.
By Maria Saporta
A rain-soaked crowd of thousands had been waiting hours when Morehouse College President John Wilson and U.S. President Barack Obama emerged from a side door of a building to enter onto Century Campus for the 129th Commencement of one of the nation’s most prestigious black colleges.
An enthusiastic cheer greeted the two presidents and the official start of the graduation ceremonies as they tried to ignore the return of the dark clouds and the rain. The thousands of people in attendance heard inspirational stories about the Salutatorian Ernest James Nelson from Albany, Ga. who will be going to the Medical College Georgia at Georgia Regent University; and Emmanuel Denyo Yao Adanu, a dual-degree graduate from Morehouse and Georgia Tech with a 4.0 GPA.
By Maria Saporta
HOUSTON — The largest city in Texas proudly claims to be the most diverse city in the United States — based on having the most even distribution of Anglos, Latinos, African-Americans and Asians.
But when one looks at the long-term implications of that diversity, it exposes some alarming issues for Houston. And those problems only foreshadow the challenges that the entire nation, including metro Atlanta, will face not too many years down the road.
That was the message that the 2013 LINK delegation of about 110 metro Atlanta leaders heard during their visit to Houston Wednesday and Thursday.
