What I heard at sales meeting…update from the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce

Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce (GNFCC) CEO and Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) board member Brandon Beach

Yesterday at sales meeting for Atlanta Fine Homes Sotheby’s International Realty, Brandon Beach, president of the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce shared with us with some exciting news on economic development and transportation for the entire North Fulton area.

The Greater North Fulton Chamber covers all parts of metro Atlanta that are North of Wieuca Road. More specifically, the areas include Sandy Springs, Roswell, Alpharetta, Mountain Park, Milton, and Johns Creek. Beach spoke to us about the companies who have recently grown their business in our area, and also spoke of the GA 400 tool booth removal as of 2013 to 2020.

• North Fulton often competes with Seattle for relocation business because of the high tech sector. Technology, Insurance, Health Care and Logistics are the focus sectors for North Fulton’s future economic development.
• State Farm, Lexus Nexus and ADP are all growing their businesses into North Fulton citing the main reason as our excellent schools.
• The Transit Initiative is something that Beach has personally been involved in as well as serving on the Department of Transportation Board. The upcoming July 31 vote on Atlanta’s transportation referendum is significant. Two websites with information on the referendum are transformmetroatlanta.com and untieatlanta.com. Watch the video below from TransformMetroAtlanta and vote July 31!

To get more information on the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce or to get involved, click on http://www.gnfcc.com/

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DOT Discusses Hwy 400 Expansion

Tuesday evening was a beautiful time for a walk, a bicycle ride or any other outside activity.

Instead, hundreds of people were inside an activity building at the Cottage School in Roswell to discuss one of the area’s hot button topics — Georgia 400.

Georgia DOT district engineer Bryant Poole discussed potential GA 400 improvements with citizens at an open house in Roswell on Tuesday. Credit Timothy Gillman

The Georgia Department of Transportation held its first of three open houses on the feasibility of adding lanes to the freeway.

The DOT provided stations in the activity room: the first was a video discussing the issue. Elsewhere there were experts fielding questions while standing at maps. The DOT also offered to let citizens fill out a study survey.

The area under consideration is from SR 20 — Buford Drive — in Forsyth County south to the intersection with I-285.

During the two-hour open house, citizens came with some ideas as well as some gripes.

They learned a few things:

• No funding source has yet been identified to pay for the right of way and construction. As a voice on the introductory video said: “Even with tolls there may not be money for improvements.”
• If lanes were added, they would be managed lanes, probably involving a toll.
• The current lane configuration will probably not be messed with. It seems likely only the added lanes would be toll lanes. It is unlikely that current lanes will become managed lanes.
• The DOT is open to ideas about how many lanes to add, the possibility of reversible lanes, most everything.

“We are at the very beginning stages,” said Bryant Poole, District Engineer with the Georgia Dept of Transportation. “Do we want four lanes, two lanes, nothing at all? What other creative ideas do [people] have and certainly, in this case, there are no identified funds to acquire right of way and build the road.

“That is part of what this is about. If we could come up with an idea, how would we fund it?”

Poole noted that transportation projects must make sense to facilitate growth decades in the future.

“[We’ll consider] any creative way that we can think of to manage congestion that will project into the future, and that is the key,” Poole said. “When we develop our transportation system, it is not thinking today or tomorrow, we’re thinking 30 years out. That is the key, even if we have to build it in phases.”

The DOT hopes to finish collecting public input by June, the video explained. Ideally, environmental documents would be approved by late 2013.

The department’s other open houses regarding GA 400 will be Thursday at Piney Grove Middle School in Cumming and March 20 at First Baptist Church in Sandy Springs.

Source: Alpharetta-Milton Patch

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Milton: Best Quality of Life in Metro Atlanta

Milton, Ga., has the highest quality of life in metro Atlanta and the ninth-highest in the South, according to The Business Journals On Numbers’ quality-of-life standings for the Southern United States.

The communities atop the list have strong economic bases, impressive housing stocks and effective educational systems.

Click here to search for homes from sale throughout metro Atlanta.

My partner, Rhonda Haran of Atlanta Fine Homes Sotheby’s International Realty, and I have the exquisite estate at 2985 N Manor Bridge Drive currently listed  in The Manor. We recently helped our seller clients at 215 Lake Manor Way to come to an offer, contract, and sale on their home in less than 60 days, also in The Manor.

Top overall in the South is Houston suburb West University Place, home to Rice University, where 85 percent of adults hold bachelor’s degrees — the highest percentage in any Southern community.

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What I heard at sales meeting….update from the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce

 

Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce (GNFCC) CEO and Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) board member Brandon Beach

Today at sales meeting for Atlanta Fine Homes Sotheby’s International Realty, Brandon Beach, president of the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce shared with us with some exciting news on economic development and transportation for the entire North Fulton area.

 

The Greater North Fulton Chamber covers all parts of metro Atlanta that are North of Wieuca Road.   More specifically, the areas include Sandy Springs, Roswell, Alpharetta, Mountain Park, Milton, and Johns Creek.  Beach spoke to us today about their program with Progress Partners, working with Gwinnett Technical college on opening a technical college in North Fulton, and their transit initiation.

• Progress Partners is the Chamber’s commitment to economic development, creating or working with companies to create jobs, and overall the quality of life in North Fulton.
• The Technical College Initiative is to focus on education and create jobs for North Fulton. Currently they have submitted various spaces and options to Gwinnett Technical as places for the college to use in the North Fulton area.  One suggested space was the Old Milton High School in the heart of downtown Alpharetta.
• The Transit Initiative is something that Beach has personally been involved in as well as serving on the Department of Transportation Board.   The transit initiative is looking at a system that would run from Windward Parkway to Perimeter and then over to Kennesaw. It has been suggested that uniting the transportation service providers to one new brand (MARTA, CCT, etc) with expanded routes that connected to one another more seamlessly and under one new brand name would take Atlanta to the next level in regards to public transportation.

The Chamber is also focused on finding logistics and IT companies around the country to relocate to the North Fulton area.  Specific states where they are targeting businesses includes Jew Jersey, New York, California, and Illinois.  Illinois makes a great target for the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce because they have recently raised the corporate income tax rate 66%.

The first question from companies who are considering relocating to metro Atlanta is about our schools. North Fulton was recently recognized has having eight of the top schools in the state according to Atlanta magazine.  The Chamber is continuing to grow and work with existing companies in the area such as Lexus Nexus and Kimberly Clark.

Recently the North Fulton area has had three large companies expand into the area.

• Hewlett Packard expanded into North Fulton with 200 jobs. Most of those new jobs will be local hires with some executives relocating to the area.
• Vesta moved into the area with 500 new jobs and it is estimated that 400 of those will be local hires.
• The CEO from Thyseen Krup was so impressed with our schools, recreation and Alpharetta area overall they decided to move their IT operations from Michigan to Alpharetta which will translate into over 100 new positions, and they have plans for continued expansion.

In all, the message was very positive with growth on the horizon for our North Fulton. Education, affordable housing, and job opportunities help drive companies to our area and the Chamber is very in tune with those needs and working each day to help attract more and more businesses to our area.

To get more information on the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce or to get involved, click on http://www.gnfcc.com/

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