Businesses in the Perimeter area showed stronger growth after the recession than businesses elsewhere in metro Atlanta, a consultant told members of the Perimeter Business Alliance on Jan. 23.
Valerie Seidel, president of The Balmoral Group of Winter Park, Fla., who studied the Perimeter area, found that Perimeter businesses posted nearly 12 percent growth when measuring 2014 data against numbers from 2007-2008. In a similar comparison, businesses across the metro area as a whole showed growth of less than 1 percent, she said.
And in those same years, employment in the Perimeter area grew by about 2 percent, while employment across the Atlanta metro area declined by about 1 p.m., Seidel told members of the Perimeter Business Alliance during a Jan. 23 panel discussion on Perimeter area growth.
Seidel conducted the study for the Perimeter Community Improvement Districts, a group of businesses that tax themselves to pay for transportation improvements in the area.
Seidel estimated that infrastructure projects by the PCIDs and local governments had a financial impact of nearly $42 million and would have an impact of about $470 million over the next decade. The PCIDs’ projects include the future reconstruction of the Ga. 400/I-285 interchange and the completed “diverging diamond” interchange on Ashford-Dunwoody Road and I-285 and the completed “half-diamond” interchange at Hammond and Ga. 400.
Other panelists taking part in the discussion – Mike Alexander, manager of research and analytics for the Atlanta Regional Commission; Dan Reuter, manager of community development for the ARC; Brenda Robbins, senior project manager for Georgia Power; and Amanda Rhein, senior director of transit-oriented development for MARTA – agreed it appeared business growth in the Perimeter and metro area would continue.
Alexander said the metro area was attracting younger people who want to live in communities in which they can take public transit or walk to work or shop.
“The millenials are coming. The millenials are coming and a lot of them are already here,” Alexander said. “They want to be in a place that’s vibrant… They’ve chosen this place. As a region and a place, we have to adapt to that millennial future.”
This is completely, 100% wrong. I love my job at a company on Glenlake parkway, but given the opportunity to work in the city that I live, I would jump in an instant. This area isn’t walk-able, it’s not convenient for public transit.
NCR is moving into the REAL city. I just heard that twitter is opening an office in Ponce City Market. Ponce City Market would allow me to live in any number of hip neighborhoods and still let me walk or bike to work. The quality of life would skyrocket; I would even be able to take a lower salary…
The perimeter is a compromise between the young people who want to live in a city and the older folks who still think they will be shot on sight if they venture south of Midtown