JOURNALISM
Taking another crack at Atlanta’s food desert, this time targeting chronic disease
- Georgia State University and Morehouse School of Medicine have received a $400,000 federal grant to promote healthier food and physical activity in black neighborhoods in southwest Atlanta, where rates of diabetes and cardiovascular disease are especially high. Most of Atlanta’s neighborhoods located south of Buckhead are identified as low income, with low access to grocery stores that provide healthy food, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Credit: usda.gov In addition, Atlanta is poised to address the city’s food deserts through ...more
Memorial Drive may get self-taxing CID to pay for transportation improvements, etc.
- Sidewalks, bicycle lanes and round-abouts could be installed along Memorial Drive sooner than later if commercial property owners support a possible tax hike. A newly formed group of volunteers is to devise a plan and gauge interest. Earth movers worked Wednesday to create a site for pending construction next to the Atlanta Dairies building, on Memorial Drive. Credit: David Pendered Given the appetite for redevelopment in the Memorial Drive corridor, the possible self-taxing district has potential support from land owners. The ...more
Georgia ports seek to expand rail service as cargo traffic keeps rising
- Most days at the port of Savannah, about 20 trains arrive to drop a load of goods for export, reload with imports, and depart a few hours later. The state plans to grow this business with a network of transport hubs in five surrounding states. The Chatham Intermodal Transfer Facility has 15,000 feet of working railroad tracks and 7,500 feet of storage tracks in a facility that covers 160 acres. Credit: GPA “The concept we’ll develop over the next couple of ...more
Turner Field neighbors to Mayor Reed: Defer any deal until after ARC-funded study is complete
- A coalition of organizations around Turner Field intend to ask Mayor Kasim Reed on Tuesday to defer any deal to redevelop the ballpark and its parking lots until after a $275,000 visioning plan is complete. The Turner Field study area, that’s to be evaluated in a $275,000 visioning plan, encompasses about 1,340 acres at and around the ballpark. Credit: ARC In February, the Atlanta Regional Commission announced it will help fund a study of about 1,340 acres around the stadium. The ...more
Georgia was a magnet for lower income folks over the past 20 years
- A new study from Georgia State University reveals that Georgia generally attracted lower income taxpayers during the boom of the 1990s and through the Great Recession, to 2011. Atlanta’s ongoing population increase is fueling demand for office space, including Stove Works in Inman Park, which leases space for $21 a foot. Credit: David Pendered Specifically, the report determined that individuals moving into the state had lower adjusted gross income than those leaving the state. In addition, individuals moving into Georgia had ...more
Florida stops funding film incentives, Georgia poised to benefit
- Florida is bracing for a slowdown in the film industry because the state Legislature voted in June to stop funding tax incentives. Georgia is winning some of the business, and the shift underscores Gov. Nathan Deal’s trade mission to Hollywood in May, and to England in January. “Ride Along 2″ filmed scenes in Atlanta after shortening its stay in Florida because that state stopped funding incentives for the film industry, according to a published report. Credit: projectcasting.com Florida started its incentive ...more
Ga. Supreme Court ruling casts pall over Cobb County funding of Braves stadium
- In a ruling Monday that validated the sale of bonds for the Braves stadium, the Georgia Supreme Court said the deal “may push the law as far as it can go.” The order also raised the question of political ramifications of the transaction. The 43-page ruling written by Justice David Nahmias concludes: The Georgia Supreme Court has cleared the way for Cobb County to help fund construction of the Atlanta Braves’ SunTrust Park. Credit: ballparksofbaseball.com “While aspects of the deal structure at ...more
Metro Atlanta ranked 4th in green buildings as certification rates dip nationwide
- Metro Atlanta ranks fourth nationally on a green building adoption index, according to a report by CBRE that also revealed a slump in the national growth rate of certification for sustainability or energy efficiency in office buildings. Three Alliance Center is expected to be LEED Gold or Platinum certified when it opens in 2016, providing a highly sustainable office building to the Buckhead market. Credit: tishmanspeyer.com The report arrives almost three months after the city of Atlanta enacted its first mandatory ...more
I-285/Ga. 400 reconstruction to improve mobility, is part of GRTA’s expansion plans
- Priced at about $1 billion, the reconstruction of the interchange of I-285 and Ga. 400 is to cost almost a third of some estimates for building the $3.6 billion transit system envisioned for the Atlanta Streetcar and Atlanta BeltLine. Placing those two figures side-by-side illustrates the enormous sums of money contemplated to maintain, if not improve, mobility in and around the city of Atlanta. Atlanta’s planned transit systems are unfunded, for the most part. They’re intended to serve the city’s growing population, ...more
Children, families at center of new Casey Foundation report on Atlanta’s future
- A new report, this one by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, puts children and families at the center of findings that reaffirm I-20 as the dividing line of household wealth in Atlanta. Social scientists find Atlanta such a popular study area that a number of reports have already documented that I-20 separates wealthy, predominately white neighborhoods in the north, and poorer, predominately non-white neighborhoods in the south. Casey’s report takes that as a starting point. The Casey study focuses on children and ...more