Express Lanes. Transportation. An Airport City. Living in Southside Metro Atlanta.
Some 600 of metro Atlanta’s decision-makers in government and business will gather Thursday at The Georgia International Convention Center in College Park to talk about these and other topics at the South Metro Development Outlook conference.
Veteran businessman and former Fulton County Commissioner Michael Hightower started the conference 15 years ago as a way to spur interest and activity on the southside.
“There was not as much interest in development on the southside. There was no market for this (type of) conference,” said Hightower, managing partner of The Collaborative Firm, a land-use planning and program management firm in south Fulton. “Since the inception of the conference, we’ve seen a huge influx of activity.”
In that time, the southside has become home to Porsche's north American headquarters. Cancer Treatment Centers of America in Newnan. Amenity-filled centers such as Camp Creek Market Place have opened. Plans for a $300 million live-work-play community called Jodeco Atlanta South are underway in Henry County.
Similarly, the conference has grown in size and influence and is seen as the go-to networking spot for all things southside.
“It’s one of the larger conferences for the southside,” Clayton Commission Chairman Jeff Turner said. “It brings developers and investors into one location to talk about the growth and expansion of the southside of Atlanta and it gets bigger and bigger every year. It brings positive attention to the southside.”
Georgia Transportation Commissioner Russ McMurry and Chris Tomlinson, head of the state Roads and Tollway Authority, will head this year's luncheon panel on the new I-75 South Express lanes, which opened Jan. 28. Other topics for this year's conference will cover the southside's logistics industry and the growth of Community Improvement Districts, most notably the aerotropolis which is a driver of development around Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
Attendees also will get a glimpse of what’s ahead for the southside economically in 2017.
On-site registration is $80 and includes breakfast and lunch. For more details about the conference, go to www.southmetrooutlook.com/
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