Everyone is looking for a breakout year for the economy. So much so that Georgia State University went ahead and said it probably won’t be so.
“Forecaster says odds are against 2014 being a breakout year for the economy,” is the headline that GSU put on its statement about the latest economic forecast by Rajeev Dhawan, of the school’s Economic Forecasting Center.
On Friday, the U.S. Commerce Department revised downward its estimate of quarterly growth at the end of 2013. The growth ...more
As Georgia vies for top talent and industry, a New York program that finances clean energy industries bears watching.
The New York Green Bank intends to help finance industries that hasten the transition to clean energy. The program is supported by the Sierra Club and headed by a banking veteran from Citigroup.
In comparison, Georgia environmentalists oppose a proposed water policy endorsed Wednesday by Gov. Nathan Deal: A plan to address low river flow in southwest Georgia by storing water underground and ...more
Georgia has quietly gotten into the business of subsidizing regional bus service in metro Atlanta.
Gov. Nathan Deal and state lawmakers have barely made a peep this year about providing about the $8.2 million that Deal recommended to pay for bus service provided by GRTA, the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority. This sum doesn’t quite cover a year’s worth of operations, and the legislature likely will fill the gap next year.
This transit funding is remarkable, if only for its history.
Just a year ...more
The historic Olympia building at Five Points is to be restored to its original grandeur, right down to the neon lighting from its days as the showroom for Wormser Hats.
The entire plan for the exterior of the building is based on photographs of the building when it opened soon after the Great Depression, according to Michael Wirsching, with Atlanta-based ASD Inc.
The building is to have a single tenant. Further commercial details were not available from city records and a principal ...more
There’s just something about a $19 billion price tag on a business acquisition that catches the eye.
This figure has to be in the back of Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed’s mind as he prepares to lead a trade delegation to Silicon Valley. The group has meetings with 12 venture capital companies and social media platforms to invite them to invest in Atlanta tech companies.
The $19 billion is the sum Facebook has agreed to pay to purchase WhatsApp, a messaging giant. WhatsApp ...more
Some degree of clarity is emerging in metro Atlanta’s cauldron of transportation planners, managers, and planning.
GRTA Executive Director Jannine Miller visited the Capitol Thursday to say her goodbyes to lawmakers and introduce them to Kirk Fjelstul, her deputy director who was named by GRTA’s board as acting director. Down Mitchell Street, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed remains without a transportation planning director as the city tries to figure out how to realigned Martin Luther King Jr. Drive around the future Falcons ...more
Atlanta now is proposing to reroute traffic west of the Falcons stadium from Martin Luther King Jr. Drive to a two-lane street that has curbside parking.
The Parsons Brinckerfhoff engineering firm designed this solution to the closure of the MLK viaduct. The proposal would create a “seamless” MLK Drive corridor, Richard Mendoza, the city’s public works commissioner, said Wednesday during a work session convened by the Atlanta City Council’s Utilities Committee.
MLK Drive once was a contiguous road that extended a dozen ...more
Terms of the deal for the Falcons stadium underscore the risks inherent in a delay in Atlanta’s sale of the bonds to fund the stadium, even as the Atlanta City Council appears to be in no rush to abandon land the state seeks for the stadium.
The Falcons can terminate the deal if Atlanta hasn’t sold bonds and deposited into the appropriate account at least $200 million by Sept. 30. The Falcons can back out if the former Herndon Homes public ...more
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 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.
Symbolic language certainly was out in force Monday, following a ...more
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 ...more
