The Falcons stadium is the next “Peyton wall” of Atlanta, a lawyer said Monday, comparing the sports venue to an actual wall the city erected across Peyton Road in 1962 to separate black and white neighborhoods.
By another account, the stadium saga is Atlanta’s version of “Groundhog Day.” In the movie, actor Bill Murray relived the same depressing events day after day after day. Poor people are the protagonists in this comparison to real life.
A seven-week delay in Atlanta’s schedule sell bonds to help pay for construction of the Falcons stadium was the immediate result of a court hearing Monday morning.
Bond validation petitions typically are open-and-shut matters. Lawyers for the government usually get a speedy ruling from a judge that allows the sale of bonds to proceed posthaste.
In the case of Atlanta’s bonds for the stadium, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Ural Granville set the next date for a bond validation hearing for April 10. In the meantime, opponents of the bond issuance can begin gathering at least some of the evidence they intend to use to try to prevent the city from issuing $278.3 million in bonds to help finance the stadium.
A court challenge has been filed against Atlanta’s plan to sell $278.3 million in bonds to help fund construction of the Falcons’ $1.2 billion stadium.
The motion to intervene portrays a breakdown in legislative and administrative processes all the way from the state Capitol to the Georgia World Congress Center Authority and to Atlanta City Hall.
The motion raises legal issues involving the constitutionality of the hotel motel tax; the demolition of two churches; failure to address state-mandated environmental concerns; and failure to ask the Atlanta Regional Commission to review the project as a development of regional impact.
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed may be bucking the adage that history judges leaders for their performance in battles not of their choosing.
One battle Reed did choose, and on which he will be judged, is to help the Falcons build a new stadium. The mayor has not been able to end the battle, though it was to have been over when the Atlanta City Council approved in December a community benefits deal that released $200 million in construction financing.
More than two months after that council vote, the stadium financing is still not a done deal: The city’s funding could be tied up in court for a year; a $200 million loan from the NFL is contingent on the city’s funding; and the state’s request to Atlanta to abandon land for the stadium is lingering in the Atlanta City Council.
Atlanta is willing to pay an interest rate of up to 8 percent for the $278.3 million in revenue bonds it intends sell to provide construction financing for the new Falcons stadium.
To put that rate in perspective, Atlanta’s airport is paying rates ranging from 2 percent to 6 percent on its $3.1 billion in outstanding bonds, according to the airport’s 2013 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report. The airport bonds are paid with proceeds of airport revenues, passenger fees and federal grants.
These terms and others are cited in the bond validation petition that Fulton County Superior Court Judge Ural Granville is scheduled to hear Feb. 17. Opponents who think the stadium deal could do more than the current plan to transform nearby neighborhoods are expected to contest the bond validation.
A committee of the Atlanta City Council tapped the brakes Tuesday on what had been a fast-moving proposal to allow Martin Luther King Jr. Drive to be rerouted in a way that’s said to provide for VIP parking at the new Falcons stadium.
Instead of fast-tracking the proposal, Utilities Committee Chairperson Natalyn Mosby Archibong won support for her suggestion that the committee convene a work session on topics involving the MLK Drive corridor. The impact of such a delay on the stadium project is unclear, but some reports suggest the stadium design is not so far along that it couldn’t be changed if MLK Drive is to be left intact.
Hans Utz, Mayor Kasim Reed’s deputy COO, told the committee that concerns about the proposal are premature until after Atlanta has agreed to abandon land to facilitate the stadium. Meanwhile, the city’s control over six parcels of land is said to be the last bit of leverage Atlanta has over the stadium project.
A planned VIP parking lot at the future Falcons stadium will require a virtual dead end of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive at the stadium, and will affect the road’s ability to become the grand boulevard envisioned by Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed.
[Scroll down the story to see a gallery of photos of the Martin Luther King Jr. Drive corridor.]
The first public discussion of this proposal is scheduled Tuesday morning during the Atlanta City Council’s Utilities Committee.
The Falcons contend fans will benefit from VIP parking and related traffic management plan that will enhance their game-day experience. Others disagree.
Two events Wednesday cast outlooks on poverty in metro Atlanta and a path that could lead one poor area toward prosperity.
A Harvard University professor confirmed a shocking report released earlier this year – social conditions in metro Atlanta are such that it is the worst major urban region in the country in terms of children born into poverty moving into the middle or upper economic classes.
At another event, Georgia Tech students outlined their ideas for revitalizing two poor neighborhoods near the Falcons stadium. Some recommendations address the very problems named in the Harvard study that are associated with intergenerational poverty.
This story has been updated.
The Atlanta City Council is slated to vote Dec. 2 on the community benefits deal that must be approved before the city can provide $200 million in construction funding for the future Falcons stadium.
The council’s Community Development Committee approved an amended deal at 7:20 p.m., almost four hours after residents of stadium neighborhoods first gathered in a crowded council meeting room.
The outcome of the city’s $200 million in stadium funding remains uncertain. Opponents have said they will file a lawsuit to prevent the city from issuing the funds.
Expect a tour de force starting Monday from those who are ready to wrap up five months worth of talks about a community benefits deal for three neighborhoods adjacent to the future Falcons stadium.
And expect the discussion to occur in a bit of a vacuum.
Public attention has drifted to Cobb County and the county commission’s scheduled vote Tuesday over public funding for a Braves stadium. In addition, the bulk of the Atlanta communities’ work product on the Falcons deal has already been introduced in the form of a resolution now pending before the Atlanta City Council and up for a vote in committee Tuesday.
Discussions at two meetings Wednesday night should shed more light on developments with the Falcons and Braves stadiums.
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed likely will discuss the Braves move to Cobb County with the Northwest Community Alliance. Just before that event, a city committee will be asked to adopt a community benefits plan related to the Falcons stadium.
Meanwhile, at a third meeting, city planning officials will discuss a new city report that confirms that Atlanta’s football and baseball stadiums have not brought prosperity to their neighborhoods. New strategies are needed to help these areas flourish, the report shows.
Another game-changing proposal to renew a portion of metro Atlanta is coming out of Georgia Tech and it is to be presented to the public Wednesday.
A dozen students studying for their masters degree in Tech’s School of City & Regional Planning have proposed a 12-page set of recommendations intended to improve neighborhoods within a mile radius of the future Falcons stadium. Officials with Invest Atlanta are reviewing the report and may use some of it to write the first draft of a community benefits deal.
Students at Tech already have produced ideas that have remade the face of Atlanta. Atlantic Station and the Atlanta BeltLine are two that may be the most dramatic, and therefore the most widely known.
Atlanta City Councilman Ivory Lee Young Jr. said Wednesday the financiers who profit from the sale of bonds for the new Falcons stadium should donate some of their profits to the nearby communities.
The proposal indicates the escalation of expectations that the future stadium should transform one of the poorest sections of Atlanta. A $30 million urban renewal fund is proving to be far from adequate to address reported community needs.
Young said it’s only fair that bond counsel and underwriters return to the communities some of the significant profits they stand to reap when they handle more than $1 billion in construction funding for the stadium. Young faces two challengers in the Nov. 5 city election.
No public urination. No open containers of alcoholic beverage. No loud noises. No open grilling and no tailgating.
These requests are on the wish list for the Castleberry Hill neighborhood, a list its residents hope will be included in a pending community benefits deal for the future Falcons stadium. Quality-of-life matters are joined by bigger items, such as a community center with a museum and repairs to bridges and sidewalks.
The list is to be presented Wednesday at Atlanta City Hall, where city officials and civic leaders are to continue discussing how to allocate $30 million through a community benefits deal. Two other stadium neighborhoods can’t agree on a project list and don’t have one to present for Vine City and English Avenue.
Discussions over a community benefits deal for neighborhoods near the new Falcons stadium are heading toward a conclusion but aren’t expected to be finalized at a meeting Wednesday evening.
One of three neighborhoods has voted on its wish list from the benefits deal, which includes a total of $30 million in public and private money. Castleberry Hill residents are ready to advance their final proposal, but plans for English Avenue and Vine City still are up in the air because of disagreements among civic leaders in those two communities – where millions of dollars were distributed to various groups as the Georgia Dome was established.
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed has indicated he’d like a final deal to be signed Wednesday night. But the amount of work still to be done indicates additional negotiations will be necessary, which seems to push a final deal after the Nov. 5 city elections.
Jacquelyn Treadville-Samuels is on her way to becoming a pipefitter. After commencement Thursday, the single mom hugged her 8-year-old son and said she’s considering a career in underwater welding.
“The pay’s good, and it would allow me the time to do other things, to give back,” Treadville-Samuels said in an auditorium bustling with beaming graduates and their families.
In all, eight women were graduated from the first all-female pre-apprenticeship program offered by Georgia Trade-Up. All now have the documented job-readiness skills needed to gain admission to construction trades apprenticeship programs or the construction industry. They are to enter the job market as $2 billion in construction is supposed to begin in downtown Atlanta.
Time is getting short if a community benefits deal for the future Falcons stadium is to be approved this year.
The calendar is filling with campaign events for the Atlanta City Council elections on Nov. 5. The final council meeting of the year is scheduled for Dec. 2. The clock matters because Atlanta cannot provide any of its $200 million in stadium construction funds until after the council approves a benefits deal, and the Falcons are said to want to begin construction in the first three months of 2014.
Meantime, limitations are becoming evident in the stadium’s ability to spark the urban renewal that’s to be guided by a benefits deal. The city’s $15 million won’t begin to address the wish list. Community morale hasn’t been helped by the discovery of the source of that $15 million.
The strategic plan to renew blighted neighborhoods near the future Falcons stadium seems to address the issue of local hiring that some advocates hope the Atlanta City Council will include in its stadium funding legislation.
“At the heart of the plan is the provision of a road map to sustainable job creation and transformative human capital development for the residents of the Westside TAD neighborhoods,” the plan states.
The report predicts that jobs – other than as shop clerks – will be created in English Avenue and Vine City. Fields are to include environmental clean-up; culture, history and the arts; early childhood learning; and construction. The report, prepared for Invest Atlanta, also describes the role of a proposed training center to prepare future workers.
The issue of how to harness the economic power of the future Falcons stadium in order to create jobs for lower income residents of nearby neighborhoods has received scant attention in the discussion to date.
Now the jobs forecast is in: 1,300 new jobs are predicted in the city’s redevelopment plan that covers English Avenue and Vine City, but not Castleberry Hill – which is supposed to be part of the deal. Of these jobs, 47 appear to be temporary construction-related jobs; 891 appear to be permanent jobs in retail shops and a hotel; and the tasks associated with 362 jobs are not specified in the plan.
There has yet to be a significant discussion of the creation of local hiring program to give nearby residents a first crack at these jobs – let alone jobs building the stadium. Yet such a program is not new ground, because Atlanta has established provisions relating to jobs in previous community benefits deals.
The $15 million offered by Atlanta to fix up neighborhoods around the planned Falcons stadium is the subject of an emerging controversy.
The money had already been earmarked for the neighborhoods before the stadium deal was announced in March, according to an Invest Atlanta official. A planning firm had already been hired to recommend how the money be spent.
In that case, the sum shouldn’t be counted toward efforts to help mitigate stadium-related issues such as traffic and storm water runoff, according to neighborhood leaders who serve on the committee that’s guiding the stadium-related community benefits deal.
