Fresh Loaf

Atlanta Constitution, circa 1890

We’d heard this rumor a couple weeks back, but former AJC bidness columnist Maria Saporta had the inside contacts to nail it down first: Atlanta’s daily newspaper is considering relocating its offices out of downtown Atlanta for the first time in its 141-year history.

Saporta, now a contributor to the Atlanta Business Chronicle, got her mitts on an Aug. 3 internal memo written by new AJC publisher Michael Joseph:

“The cost of operating the downtown building is very high. Since moving production out to Gwinnett, we occupy less than 30 percent of the facility. As a result, the expense to operate the building is exorbitant. No decision has been made at this time, but we are looking at options including maintaining our current downtown location or relocating to a new, smaller site in the greater Atlanta area. I will keep you informed and share any updates on this issue.”

Keep in mind that the company owns — not leases — the building at 72 Marietta St. While Joseph doesn’t specifically rule out finding another building downtown, it’s tough to imagine the AJC could find suitable rental space that would be cheaper than property it already owns.

(Or did own. There’s another rumor swirling around that the Marietta Street building has already been sold, but that will have to remain unconfirmed for now.)

If the newspaper is to move outside downtown, there are a couple of obvious choices, both of which Saporta mentions and both of which are OTP — one OTPer than the other.

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Atlanta Business Chronicle reports Delta is shutting down its routes from Atlanta to India and China.

That sucks.

How are Americans supposed to schmooze our future Asian overlords if we can’t fly there directly?

(Hat-twip to the always Biz Chronic @Urvaksh)

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The Atlanta Business Chronicle has put all of its stories about local spending of federal stimulus money on a single page called the ABC Stimulus Tracker.

Among the local projects I learned about on the site: Cochran Shoals in the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area is getting a new “comfort station” as well as repairs on its old ones.

All Metro Atlantans who think the federal stimulus is a power grab by the fascistsocialistmuslimfundamentalistKenyanpirate Obama Regime are advised to go potty before visiting the park or to bring adult diapers, lest their bodily excretions be interpreted as stinky tacit approval of Obama’s wasteful, tyrannical policies.

And don’t forget, kids, tea is a diuretic.

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Note to lawmakers: Perhaps using one of the metro region’s most important assets as a bargaining chip isn’t that great of an idea? Maybe?

From Friday’s Atlanta Business Chronicle:

If Atlanta’s rapid transit system is forced to eliminate a day of service, business leaders say, it will be a severe economic blow to a city already stung by a deepening recession.

…

“It would be devastating for the Atlanta economy and therefore the state of Georgia’s economy if MARTA has to restrict services on any day,” said A.J. Robinson, president of Central Atlanta Progress, the alliance of downtown businesses. He called the state’s failure to resolve the problem a “travesty.”

…

“If MARTA has to furlough its trains and buses for one day a week, the ripple effect would be tremendous,” Metro Atlanta Chamber President Sam Williams said. “I’ve talked to several big employers who say their businesses would be drastically affected. This would certainly send a message nationwide that Georgia has another problem and can’t solve it.”

The paper also quotes officials from AT&T, UPS and BellSouth — all of whom say MARTA service cuts could impact their workers. There’s also a good list of statistics outlining the role MARTA plays in shuttling residents and visitors around the region.

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Jason at Peach Pundit hammers House Bill 614, legislation that he says would violate your privacy.

Maria Saporta says the state needs to stop plotting takeovers of MARTA and Jackson-Hartsfield International Airport.

Ben at Terminal Station has a rundown of Saporta’s report on an Urban Land Institute mayoral candidate forum.

Doug at Live Apartment Fire spotlights veteran reporter Don McClellan. The still-at-it newsman reported on — and ran in — this weekend’s ING Marathon.

Speaking of the ING Marathon, Dave at inDecatur has video and photos from the race.

Good news for Georgia’s reputation and any hope of having a biotech industry here. Jim Galloway reports that a House committee chairman says the controversial stem-cell bill won’t move out of the lower chamber.

The Atlanta Business Chronicle’s Urvaksh Karkaria reports on a top-secret meeting of tomorrow’s media overlords at Kennesaw State University professor Leonard Witt’s home. There are photos!

I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to post this. Christa, the mysterious scribe behind Pecanne Log, found a 1967 issue of GQ that’s all about Atlanta. She has photos and pullquotes.

And just because, a helping of Griftdrift’s My Morning Wooten from Friday.

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Four weeks ago, Borders told us she was “reconsidering” a run for mayor. Well, sometime between then and now, she quit reconsidering and decided to jump back in. Maria Saporta reports on Borders’ turnabout in today’s Atlanta Business Chronicle and our own sources confirm that the Council president is indeed back in. A formal announcement is expected sometime next week.

Borders’ re-entry could up-end the mayor’s race – or maybe not. Before she pulled out last August for family reasons, Borders was routinely described as a front-runner, yet she’d raised a mere $300,000 during more than a year as a declared candidate. She’s now a good six months behind the current front-runners, Councilwoman Mary Norwood and state Sen. Kasim Reed, in terms of fund-raising and campaign events. Still, I’m told that a certain former top executive (of a company whose initials are GP) canceled a Norwood fund-raiser last week when he heard Borders was getting back in.

But the news will certainly affect the down-ticket city races. I’m waiting to hear back, but I understand Councilman Ceasar Mitchell has already dropped his bid for mayor and is shooting instead for the president’s seat. (He’s taken down his campaign website for retooling.) [UPDATE – Mitchell called back to say he isn't ready to reveal his plans just yet, but will make an announcement soon.] Councilwoman Clair Muller, who was aiming to retire from her Buckhead post after 20 years, has also expressed interest in the job. And we’ve heard that state Sen. Vincent Fort, D-Atlanta, is likewise eyeing the position.

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Not good news for bonds, the go-to financing tool for many municipal projects.

Dave Williams of the Atlanta Business Chronicle reports:

Representatives of Standard & Poor’s notified city officials March 6 that they were downgrading Atlanta from a rating of AA- to A “with a stable outlook.”

Word of the move was delivered to Mayor Shirley Franklin and members of the city council by Jim Glass, Atlanta’s chief financial officer, at the end of a two-day council retreat devoted largely to discussing the city’s finances.

The downgrade, Williams writes, doesn’t affect the city Department of Watershed Management, which is overseeing a costly upgrade to Atlanta’s antiquated sewer system, or Jackson-Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport.

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The state Senate today passed a bill 38-16 that would allow Georgia Power to begin collecting fees from customers to help pay for two proposed nuclear reactors prior to their construction. (The Senate Press Office included in its release about the bill’s passage this hilarious photo to the right of the bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Don Balfour, R-Gavelville.)

The bill now moves to the House, where Jim Galloway of the AJC says lawmakers are generally warm to the idea.

Supporters of the bill say it’ll save the utility — and in turn, customers — money in the long run.

But many lawmakers and consumer groups oppose the move because they say it sidesteps the Public Service Commission  — and partially exempts big business and industrial customers from the increased rates.

For an excellent rundown of the controversial legislation, view my esteemed colleague Scott Henry’s post.

After the jump, Dave Williams of the Atlanta Business Chronicle reports some lawmakers’ thoughts about the bill.

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From the Atlanta Business Chronicle:

Former U.S. Attorney Griffin Bell, 90, died Monday morning in Atlanta after a battle with pancreatic cancer.

Bell, former attorney general of the United States during the Jimmy Carter administration, was a towering figure in the nation’s legal field for decades. As a senior partner with King & Spalding LLP, Bell represented controversial clients such as tobacco firms. The American College of Trial Lawyers even renamed its Committee on Unpopular Causes after Bell.

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Yep. That’s billion.

According to the first phase of a study conducted by a consulting firm tasked with developing a statewide transportation plan, Georgia needs an extra $100 billion over the next 20 years if we want to move around this congested mess.

The always-excellent Maria Saporta at the Atlanta Business Chronicle reports:

The study explores improving mobility in the Atlanta region through three different ways:

• Demand management: teleworking, compressed workweeks, employee vanpools, congestion pricing, better clear of accidents and converting existing HOV lanes to High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes, where people pay a premium to drive in faster-moving lanes.

• Connecting infrastructure: HOT lanes connecting major employment centers, an express bus system, commuter rail to Griffin and additional arterial roads.

• Invest in most congested corridors: replace express buses with light or heavy rail in dense corridors, build high capacity road projects and build commuter rail between Atlanta and Athens.

The “scenario study” defines those high-capacity road projects as a tunnel underneath the Downtown Connector from I-675 to Georgia 400; and another tunnel paralleling the northern arc of I-285.

That thing about commuter rail? Really cool. The thing about the tunnel snaking under the Downtown Connector tunnels? Well, as the also-excellent Joe Winter once wrote in CL — not so cool.

The price tag for the statewide transportation plan over the next 20 years is between $142 billion and $251 billion. About a half of those funds would likely come from existing sources, such as federal highway dollars, the motor fuel tax and the MARTA sales tax.

Which means the rest will have to come from a new source. The next phase of the study will focus on that conundrum.

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Gov. Sonny Perdue today said he’d support the long-awaited commuter rail line between Atlanta and Griffin, pitching it as a “pilot program” for other routes in other parts of the state.

We turn to Dave Williams of the Atlanta Business Chronicle. He reports:

“We have not kept pace in our transportation infrastructure,” Perdue said during a news conference at his Capitol office. “We need to catch up and make sure we plan for the future.”

As recently as this year’s legislative session, the governor stood on the sidelines as lawmakers debated a proposed constitutional amendment that would have allowed Georgians frustrated by ever-worsening traffic congestion to vote by region on whether to raise sales taxes to pay for needed transportation improvements. The legislation, which would have included public transit projects, failed by three votes in the Senate.

…

Perdue said he chose the Griffin project over a second planned commuter rail line linking Atlanta and Athens because substantial federal funds already are committed to the Griffin line. The southern route also offers fewer impediments to an agreement to share the tracks with freight trains operated by Norfolk Southern Corp., he said.

Yep, that’s what the DOT board told us a couple of months ago, too. Click that link to read more about the train that will lead to Griffin. Perdue also told reporters he’d located the funding he promised last week to purchase sorely-needed buses for GRTA.

Perdue also announced that he has identified $13 million from various funding sources that he plans to use to buy an additional 28 buses for the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority, which operates commuter bus routes across the metro area. He asked for the money last winter, but the legislature yanked it from the mid-year budget.

Get Georgia Moving, a coalition of more than 50 groups ranging from road builders to transit advocates who led the unfruitful push for additional funding for transportation during the last legislative session, applauded the governor’s decision via press release:

“We commend the Governor for moving to address Georgia’s transportation funding shortfall,” said Charles Tarbutton, assistant vice president of Sandersville Railroad Company, chair of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce and co-chair of the Get Georgia Moving Coalition. “For too long, Georgia has lacked the money to build the infrastructure we need to support our booming population and maintain our strong economy. As a result, badly needed projects are being canceled all across Georgia. This problem is affecting every corner of our state. It touches every one of the nearly 10 million people who call Georgia home. And it must be resolved.”

“We applaud the Governor’s leadership and are glad to see transportation being addressed at the highest level,” said Bill Linginfelter, former Georgia State CEO for Wachovia Bank and former chairman of the transportation policy committee of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce. “Congestion is the number one problem every citizen deals with every day in metro Atlanta and the biggest threat to our quality of life and continued economic success. This problem is not new. It has been looming for at least 10 years. In a decade, metro Atlanta has gone from 15^th- to 4^th- to 2^nd-worst traffic in the nation.”

“Any real solution must be immediate, generate enough funding to provide the relief we need, be open to all modes of transportation and have a meaningful impact on our quality-of-life and our economic competitiveness,” said Joe Leonard, retired chairman of AirTran Airways, chairman of the transportation policy committee of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and co-chair of the Get Georgia Moving Coalition. “We applaud the Governor for engaging experts on a comprehensive solution and we look forward to a plan that produces tangible, immediate and significant results.”

In other news, pigs are drunk with flight-induced glee.

UPDATE: After the jump, view Perdue’s statement.

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