A week after Atlanta Housing announced that a development team had been chosen to transform the derelict Atlanta Civic Center site into housing, one of the developers – New York-based Tishman Speyer – has decided to withdraw from the project. According to a report at Atlanta Civic Circle, the housing authority’s CEO Eugene Jones said the developer’s decision “comes as a great surprise.” Whether the other half of the development team – Atlanta-based H.J. Russell & Co. – will bid again is unknown. Tishman Speyer said in a statement that “while this is clearly a unique development site with great potential, we’ve determined that the project is not right for us at this time.” The plan presented by the team included 1,300 apartments, with 430 marked as affordable housing on the 14-acre site in Old Fourth Ward.
The DeKalb County Elections Board declined to certify the results of the May 24 primary on Tuesday after the county’s elections director Keisha Smith was unable to produce the results of a hand count in the Commission District 2 race. According to Decaturish, it is unclear whether the June 21 runoff will feature candidates Marshall Orson and Lauren Alexander or if Michelle Long Spears will garner enough additional votes to make that runoff or win the race outright. It was Spears who raised doubts about the results and led to the hand count after some precincts – including her own precinct – reported she had received zero votes.
Druid Hills High School will be modernized after the Georgia Department of Education threatened to withhold funding for the DeKalb County School System’s repair plans. Druid Hills High was removed from a list of schools needing repair and modernization, prompting students to post a viral video of the disrepair and unsafe conditions at the campus. The DeKalb County School Board voted this week to put Druid Hills back on the list, with an expected upgrade cost of $50 million. Read more about this story at WABE.
