Last week, Mayor Kasim “Ramrod” Reed pushed a plan through the City Council to float $13 million of city money to help movie mogul Tyler Perry buy a majority of Fort McPherson, the old Army base that has long protected Atlanta from foreign incursions.
The new Fort McPerry would be a 330-acre studio that would continue delivering films like Madea, Madea Goes to Jail and the 114 other Madea vehicles that have turned the actor/filmmaker into the biggest deal in Atlanta since Evander Holyfield left a chunk of his ear in Mike Tyson’s mouth.
Actually, the city isn’t giving the money to Perry; it’s using its credit standing to smooth a complicated deal between the filmmaker, the military and the local redevelopment authority. If Perry were to fail to make the second of two payments to the feds, the city would pony up to buy the land.
Fort McPerry, by the city’s calculations, will create 8,000 jobs, although such projections are generally coated with bright-eyed effusion. Still, many people reason, the project will benefit an area that hasn’t seen a whole lot.
Reed told council members the money had to be earmarked RIGHT AWAY! because he worries Perry might walk if the deal isn’t closed soon.
News of the pact set the usual boo-birds grousing on the Internet, grumbling about a sneaky, inside deal where the public is on the outside of the fortifications looking in. Some argue that Perry, a bud of the mayor’s, will keep the fort walled off from the surrounding neighborhoods rather than make it part of the local fabric.
I, too, am offended.
I am ticked off by how our city officials are treating a certified local treasure like Tyler Perry. Just thirteen million? And he doesn’t get to keep the money? If I was the esteemed filmmaker, I’d be indignant.
Just five miles to the north, Arthur Blank and his Rebuilding Falcons have been afforded $200 million of tax money to help build a new $1.4 billion (as of now) stadium. And all because the ancient, 23-year-old Georgia Dome is in danger of one day turning 25. The stadium will eat hundreds of millions more in taxes over 30 years for maintenance, financing and operating costs.
Blank is worth an estimated $2.5 billion and ranked 284th on the Forbes’ list of the richest Americans. Still, he might get jealous when he looks 10 miles north. There, the normally conservative Cobb County is giving John Malone, chairman of Liberty Media, the keys to a fleet of Brinks trucks stuffed with public money.
In 2006, Malone, a tycoon who famously hates taxes, engineered an ingenious stock/cash/asset swap with Time Warner that saved Liberty Media $600 million in taxes. The deal, in essence, gave Malone’s company a free Major League Baseball team and $160 million in cash. Not bad for someone worth an estimated $8.4 billion and ranked 60th on the Forbes list.
But you can never sock away too much, so Malone’s subsidiary, The Rebuilding Braves, is getting up to $400 million in tax money from Cobb to build a new ballpark. Mind you, Liberty Media’s operating income last year increased to $814 million.
As Madea might say, “Aww, hell no!”
With the Braves moving to Cobb, Mayor Reed had to affix a RE/MAX sign to the 18-year-old Turner Field, hoping that a college or a soccer league is interested in a distress sale. The proceeds could be used to keep the Rebuilt Hawks in ATL (I kid a lot, but I’m not joking about this.)
It turns out the Braves did the Hawks a huge favor. The basketball team is being sold to a group that includes two billionaires (Tony Ressler, worth $1.4 billion, 418th on the Forbes list, and Spanx founder Sara Blakely, $1.1 billion and 513th). Mayor Reed assuredly doesn’t want to be known as The Guy Who Ran Two Teams Out of Town.
So, the Hawks have got some Major League leverage. Before you know it, the new owners will be finding leaks in the roof of the aging 16-year-old Philips Arena and figuring out a way to part tax payers from their money.
I go into all this to point out that our own local guy, Tyler Perry, is simply getting a sweet deal, some vintage home cookin’, rather than a dump truck full of public money.
You’d think his adopted home town could show a local guy some love. Granted, he’s done pretty well; he’s worth an estimated $400 million. But he’s not Master-of-the-Universe rich. Four hundred mill doesn’t put you on those Forbes lists with the billionaires. In fact, I had to dig out his estimated worth from something called celebritynetworth.com.
Mayor Reed talks about the benefit to the city’s southwest side and what the studio might do as an anchor. Excitement in the area has ebbed and flowed for a decade since it was announced the Army was leaving the 488-acre facility it has occupied since 1885.
The fort has MARTA stops, is near the airport and is not far from the highway. Visions of mixed-used development, of walkability, of people living in a historic little village on an old base with parade grounds, of a public golf course — all those dreams buoyed an area that has seen little to get excited about for decades.
But … then … nothing … happened. A recession hit, stopped what little growth was happening, and now, rather than genuine excitement in the surrounding neighborhoods, there’s mostly a shrug and a feeling the studio is better than an abandoned Army base.
Some have complained that Perry will wall off his 330 acres. That makes sense. Why would he want visitors blundering into the complex and making Madea blow takes?
Dianese Howard, who lives just north of the base, is disappointed by the prospect of the walls staying up and few jobs spilling out to the neighborhood.
“I think the city could have come up with something much better,” she said.
Dianne Bryant, who is active in NPU-X, the local neighborhood planning unit that's across the street from the facility, said residents want to see something happen. She figures a new set of walls surrounding Fort McPerry won't bother her much. They've stood for 130 years.
“It’s been a base; it’s not like they’re taking anything away from us,” she said. “There’s some (people) against it who don’t like Mayor Reed because he’s in cahoots with Tyler Perry. But does that make it a bad idea?”
Good question.
About the Author
