In The News...

New fall arts festival coming to Piedmont Park

Atlanta Business Chronicle
Rachel Tobin Ramos
August 31st, 2007

After an almost 10-year hiatus, an arts festival will once again grace the paths of Piedmont Park this fall.

Julie Tepp, who for 10 years helped organize the Dogwood Festival, is staging the Atlanta Arts Festival Sept. 14-16.

It will be the first fall arts event in the park since the Arts Festival of Atlanta was shuttered in 1997.

The 10-day-long affair was once one of Atlanta's premier cultural events, with performances, fine art and lots of impromptu drumming circles. That event ended after it moved to Centennial Olympic Park.

Said Tepp: "So many of the artists were absolutely devastated when that show went away. It was a hugely successful show for them, and was part of their livelihood."

After leaving the Dogwood Festival to have a baby last year, she decided to start her own business, and founded the new festival in January.

Tepp's event -- financed by her and her husband -- will have 200 artists selected by a panel of museum curators and gallery owners from 706 applicants.

She's expecting about 20,000 people over the weekend.

"I'm not looking to create another large beer bash in the park," she said, which is why she's partnered with NPR affiliate WABE and jazz station WJZZ to get the word out, instead of a mainstream radio station.

All abilities welcome. A new attraction at Centennial Olympic Park will welcome children of all abilities.

The park, which is managed by the state and the Georgia World Congress Authority, is building an all-children's playground on the north end of the venue at Baker Street, across from the new World of Coca-Cola, near an existing playground.

The playground will feature 20 pieces of equipment tailored to disabled children, including the blind, said Katy Pando, an authority spokeswoman.

Activities will include slides, bongo drums, a fish-net climber and "talk tubes" that teach kids about long-distance communication.

She said that 60 percent of the $800,000 cost was raised through private donors, while the rest has been paid for by the authority.

The idea for the playground came from Alyssa Barnes, a teacher and the daughter of former Gov. Roy Barnes.

EDAW, the original designers of the leaf-quilt patterned park that was a centerpiece for Olympic events in 1996, is designing the playground. The park should be finished by year end.

ACVB moving. It's final: The Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau will be moving to the 14th and 15th floors of the Harris Tower at Peachtree Center at 233 Peachtree St. this year.

The 10-year lease with Los Angeles-based CB Richard Ellis Group Inc. (NYSE: CBG) was finalized on Aug. 22, said Gregory Pierce, the ACVB's chief financial officer.

He said the move was spurred by the bureau's need for more space.

The bureau is moving from 21,700 square feet to 31,500 square feet.

The agency -- which is charged with luring tourists and conventioneers to Atlanta and is partially funded by the city's hotel-motel tax -- has grown from about 60 employees 10 years ago to about 80 today.

The agency -- which is charged with luring tourists and conventioneers to Atlanta and is partially funded by the city's hotel-motel tax -- has grown from about 60 employees 10 years ago to about 80 today.

The ACVB offices, said Pierce, have been in Peachtree Center since the 1960s. The bureau considered moving to another building downtown, but its original lease didn't expire until 2012, so it would have been too expensive for another building owner to buy it out.

"This locks in our commitment to the center of the city," he said, "which is where our largest stakeholders, the major hotels, are."

Raising Hilton. Charles Ackerman's Buckhead project, which will include a 360-room Hilton hotel and 50 luxury condos, could break ground as soon as the first or second quarter of 2008. That's according to Lewis C. Miller, the senior vice president of investment properties in the hotel unit of CB Richard Ellis Group Inc.

Miller has been hired by the developers -- including Sandcastle Resort & Hotels and Day Capital Partners -- to raise money for the 1.65-acre project.

Miller's group recently raised capital for a $590 million project in Orlando, Fla., that includes a 1,000-room Hilton and 500-room Waldorf Astoria, he said.

Miller said the Atlanta project will cost about a third of that. This is the first Hilton to be developed in Atlanta's urban core after a 30-year restriction expired in 2006, said Miller.


« Return to News Articles