After 11 years in operation, the popular Grant Park breakfast and lunch spot, Stone Soup Kitchen, will close on Aug. 23. In a media release, Stone Soup Kitchen owner Sarah Rick said she received an eviction notice from Paces Properties, which has bought the Woodward Avenue building that includes the restaurant and a few other business tenants. Rick said she was unable to negotiate an affordable lease. Paces Properties said in a press release that “In order to accommodate exterior improvements and building system upgrades to the building, the rent structure for tenants logically needed to be escalated for financial feasibility. Paces made numerous attempts to agree to a long term lease with Stone Soup Kitchen, negotiations broke down especially when Stone Soup Kitchen revealed their intention to sell their business by year end. Paces was disappointed that an agreement could not be reached to continue to maintain the existing Stone Soup Kitchen operation, as the tenancy of Stone Soup Kitchen was one of the deciding factors for the acquisition.”
The Open Door Community center for the homeless on Ponce de Leon Avenue will close in January 2017 after 35 years in operation, according to a report from Creative Loafing. The center’s operators cited their advancing age, gentrification and the cost for maintaining the 100-year-old building as their reasons for closing.
General Electric plans to establish a global digital operations center in Midtown for its Information Technology unit. The new center will eventually create more than 400 jobs as GE shutters the Fairfield, Conn.-based IT HQ and consolidates work from around the country in Atlanta, according to Atlanta Business Chronicle.