When I graduated University of Georgia in 2008 amidst the Great Recession and soon started working for Lisa Borders’ Mayoral Campaign, that year was a crash course in Atlanta geography. Simultaneously, friends from high school who didn't go to New York, moved all across the city. A few…
We are moving at Michael Johnson-gold-shoes pace, announcing neighborhood defining restaurants or retail shops seemingly every week. Taking a moment to pick our head up out of the fox hole to assess the diligent work the team has accomplished over the past few quarters seems like a good idea. We…
As Atlanta’s finest assortment of unique, boutique, and local restauranteurs reveal their brave ambitions with banger after banger after banger of announcements putting Atlanta’s culinary food scene on their back, the very simple question we receive often revolves around housing downtown: “Build housing, people will come.” “Housing is…
I hear or see it every now and then. Oftentimes the words come up when provoked in the context of traffic, over crowded restaurants, and have even shifted to any form of unpleasant experience living in our metropolitan city. “We are full.” It’s almost a subtle way for locals…
The Beltline was even more abuzz with the grand new opening and ceremonial severing of a ribbon at OneTrust’s office opening. Spectacular, dazzling, and fresh is what I took away from the event. Their view, the near life-size replica of Buzz – Georgia Tech’s mascot – looking over the office,…
Fifteen months into being CEO of SoDo Atlanta, LLC, the holding company that owns 57 historic buildings, 10 city blocks, and 16 acres of Atlanta’s downtown core, I get asked the same question numerous times a week: “what is the biggest challenge holding our downtown back?” My first answer…
Why do some restaurants work and some don't? Why do some software startups successfully scale while others flare out? In the software world we constantly talk about authentic demand and product-market fit. Now that we’re in the real estate business – particularly in an unproven market, there are…
An experienced real-estate developer told me the other day, “y’all have a very unique situation going on in downtown. Normally, one development starts, builds, and delivers while the surrounding developers wait and see what happens. That’s not the case right now.” There’s been a feeling of positive…