Officials from Pill Hill’s three hospitals will meet with Sandy Springs Mayor Rusty Paul and state transportation officials in a private traffic planning “summit” July 21.
The meeting will come exactly one month after the mayor and City Council essentially declared a moratorium on parking garages in the traffic-choked medical area until the hospitals come up with a unified transportation plan.
“I’ve had a couple temper tantrums of late and I find that they work,” Paul said July 18 to a crowd gathered for a city planning meeting at Heritage Sandy Springs, referring to his frustrated outbursts about Pill Hill and Braves stadium traffic plans, or lack thereof.
In an interview, Paul said the meeting will include officials from MARTA and the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority, along with Northside, Emory Saint Joseph’s and Scottish Rite hospitals. That’s “the reason we’re calling it a transportation summit,” he said.
Paul said he has no preview of what the hospitals will have to say, but added, “I’ve been told they’re bringing plans.” He said he has heard no further information about a supposed traffic master plan being paid for by Northside, according to the Perimeter Community Improvement Districts.
Northside has an expansion plan, including a 10-story employee parking garage, that was slated to go before the city Planning Commission the same day as the mayoral meeting. The official agenda recently changed to list that project as on “administrative hold.”
Northside is also the main tenant in a Johnson Ferry Road office building that the mayor and council targeted June 21 for the message-sending 60-day deferral on another parking garage plan.
This story has been updated to correct that the Georgia Department of Transportation will not be represented at the meeting.