sandy springs at ten | 2015 reporter

www.ReporterNewspapers.net | NOV. 27 – DEC. 10, 2015 | 1

Decades in the making City reinventing itselfBY DYANA BAGBY

On a recent Friday evening, families and couples were fi lling up Nancy G’s, the casual dining restaurant tucked into a back corner of the Fountain Oaks

Shopping Center off Roswell Road.“I can’t believe it’s been 10 years,” says Nancy Goodrich, owner of the restaurant,

as she greets customers at the door. Although she’s speaking of the anniversary of her dining spot, she also knows that Nancy G’s shares its anniversary with the be-ginning of incorporated Sandy Springs.

“I feel like we’re growing up together,” she said.

BY JOHN [email protected]

“Welcome to everybody’s neighborhood,” said Mayor Rusty Paul at September’s ground-breaking at City Springs, as two dozen resi-

dents heeded his call to bring soil from their neighborhoods to mingle at the site.

Th at $220 million redevelopment fulfi lls a major promise the city made in its fi rst decade: to create a new downtown. But, as the mayor’s ceremony of symbolic unity suggests, Sandy Springs is also still in the process of inventing itself.

Sandy Springs at Ten

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 CONTINUED ON PAGE 6

The city of Sandy Springs

is in the midst of creating a downtown

called “City Springs,” located between Roswell

Road and Sandy Springs Circle, and bounded by Johnson Ferry Road to the north and Mount Vernon Highway to the south.

AERIAL PHOTO FOR REPORTER NEWSPAPERS

ReporterNewspapers


2 | NOV. 27 – DEC. 10, 2015 | www.ReporterNewspapers.net

2005 2006Legislature approves creation of the city of Sandy Springs.

Voters approve creation of the city of

Sandy Springs. Ninety-four percent say yes.

Pictured right:Eva Galambos with key to

the new city.

John McDonough starts work as the city’s

fi rst city manager.

Sandy Springs formally incorporates, the fi rst new city in Georgia in nearly 50 years. Eva Galambos is elected the city’s fi rst mayor. Tibby DeJulio, Dianne Fries, Karen Meinzen McEnerny and Rusty Paul are elected to the fi rst city council. Da-vid Greenspan and Ashley Jenkins later win runoff elections to take seats on the inaugural council.

6/6 6/21 2/1512/1

The police departmentbegins operations.

7/1

DECADES IN THE

MAKING

THEN & NOW

City Springs

THEN: The Owens family pos-es in front of their home around 1898 on what is now the City Springs site. The house stood in the area of the former Tar-

get store along Mount Vernon High-way. (Photo: Heritage Sandy Springs)

NOW: An illustration released by the city earlier this year of one of the City Springs redevelop-ment buildings under construc-tion on the site now. City Springs is set to open in late 2017.

Consistency in service and food are what make Nancy G’s successful to-day, Goodrich says. And she believes those traits are also what makes Sandy Springs a thriving city now.

For City Councilman Tibby DeJu-lio, elected to represent District 5 in the city’s fi rst election a decade ago and who still sits on the council, it is con-sistency and quality of service from the city’s government that ensures its ap-proximately 102,000 residents are safe and pleased with its leadership.

“Th e city is run on a very profes-sional basis,” he said. “Not only have we evolved and progressed better than we expected, we have done better than we ever hoped to.”

DECADES OF LOBBYING FOR CITY

In 1987, DeJulio became embroiled in a zoning battle with Fulton Coun-ty when county offi cials planned to tear down houses across the street from his home in order to build apartment buildings.

DeJulio said he argued before the Fulton County Commission to stop the plans — and he won. Shortly after,

he met Eva Galambos, known as the mother of Sandy Springs.

“She told me what she was trying to do and asked me to join,” DeJu-lio remembered. “And then I went to a meeting of the Committee for San-dy Springs.”

Galambos and others had formed the committee in 1975 after the city of Atlanta attempted to annex Sandy Springs. Th ose living in Sandy Springs were unhappy with Fulton County ser-vices, such as police protection, and they also felt their tax dollars were be-ing used to bolster the less fi nancially stable south Fulton. Zoning battles be-tween Sandy Springs and the county, which wanted more development, were common.

And while state Democrats accused the Sandy Springs cityhood movement of being nothing more than “white fl ight” and used their power in the General Assembly to block cityhood eff orts, DeJulio said Sandy Springs residents were simply tired of being tied to a non-responsive Fulton Coun-ty government. One county study showed Sandy Springs residents sent $91 million more to Fulton County than they received in services annually.

Th e fi rst meetings of the Commit-tee for Sandy Springs were primari-ly organizational, DeJulio said. Th ey dealt with matters such as determining what kind of structure the city would have and who would be making deci-sions.

Th e meetings were held in mem-bers’ homes, in boardrooms of lo-cal businesses and also in the Sandy Springs United Methodist Church.

“It was a time when we knew we had a lot of work to do, a lot of people to lobby. Atlanta was very open about wanting to annex us only for our reve-nue — the city never talked about what it could do to help Sandy Springs,” De-Julio said.

And lobby they did. Volunteers with the committee spent weeks and months, eventually more than 20 years, lobbying legislators under the Gold Dome, asking them to pass legis-lation to put a referendum on the bal-lot that would give residents of Sandy Springs a chance to vote to incorpo-rate their city.

“Every year we hoped, and every year we tried diff erent angles at the Legislature,” said Carolyn Axt, recent-ly retired executive director of Leader-ship Sandy Springs. “Eva would come and talk to our class every year and give an update on eff orts. And every year we

wouldn’t quite get it through.”DeJulio said he and Galambos spent

many days and nights speaking pub-licly about the benefi ts of incorporat-ing Sandy Springs, including having lo-cal governmental control and deciding how the city’s money would be spent. Th ree studies done by the Vinson In-stitute of the University of Georgia showed cityhood was right for Sandy Springs, he said.

“When we had debates on the pros and cons of cityhood, we were hard pressed to fi nd someone from the oth-er side. We often had to get someone from Atlanta or from Fulton County to represent the opposition,” DeJulio said.

In 2005, with Republican Gov. Son-ny Perdue in offi ce and a Republican majority in the House and Senate, San-dy Springs fi nally got its wish — the Legislature authorized a referendum for Sandy Springs. Th is marked the fi rst time in some 50 years that residents would get to vote to create a new city in Georgia.

“Eva came to talk to our class that year and said, ‘Guess what? We’re go-ing to have a city,’” Axt remembered. “And then we had a short time to put everything together and the communi-ty quickly came together. Th e dog had caught the train and we had to make sure we were ready.”

‘A CITY RUN ON A PROFESSIONAL BASIS’

Th e referendum was set for June 21, 2005. When the votes were counted, 94 percent of Sandy Springs’ voters said they wanted to incorporate.

“It was a day of great celebration. We met that night at Heritage Sandy Springs and celebrated and proclaimed victory. But we also knew it was the be-ginning of a huge amount of work that needed to be done,” said DeJulio.

After a night of celebrating and a few hours of sleep, those working to create the city of Sandy Springs woke up the next morning ready to get to work.

Task forces were formed immediate-ly to take on issues including police and fi re, fi nances, administration and pub-lic works.

“Eva and I spent about 17 years working to form the city. And during that time we did a lot of planning,” said DeJulio. “We pretty much knew what had to be done.”

Not wanting a bureaucracy, volun-teers working to set up Sandy Springs’

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1



2007Friends of Sandy Springs, an organization started decades earlier to promote the creation of a city of Sandy Springs, offi cially goes out of business. Tibby DeJulio and Rusty Paul turn over the last $14,000 in the organization’s treasury to the city.

City buys parksfrom Fulton County.The fi re department

begins operations.

2/207/6 12/29

A decade behind us, and we’ve only just begun.

Congratulations to the

City of Sandy Springs on turning 10!

government decided it would be best to run the city like a corporate board structure — with a mayor as the CEO and the council as the board of direc-tors.

“We wanted the city run on a pro-fessional basis. We didn’t want to have a lot of people hiring relatives, for ex-ample,” DeJulio said. Th is meant hir-ing a private company to run much of the city’s departments, other than po-lice and fi re — something unheard of at the time for municipal governments. Now Sandy Springs stands as a mod-el city for others desiring private-pub-lic partnerships.

Th e city’s fi rst election was held in November 2005. Galambos was easi-ly elected mayor. And when it came to hiring the city manager, she conducted an unconventional interview.

“Th e phone call comes. Th e head-hunter says…‘I’ve got this really in-teresting opportunity. Th is opportuni-ty is not traditional. Th is is something diff erent,” remembered John Mc-Donough, the city’s fi rst and only city manager.

McDonough applied and was in-terviewed by “citizens screening com-mittees” and then he met with Mayor Galambos at Island Ford Park on the Chattahoochee. “She got her hiking boots on. She said, ‘Let’s go for a hike.’ Off we went, had an impromptu hike,” while she interviewed him.

“Eva was just the epitome of a lead-er…She was so impressive, had a clear vision,” he said.

At midnight on Dec. 1, 2005, the reins were turned over from Fulton County to the fl edgling Sandy Springs.

“It was like turning on a light switch,” DeJulio said. “We had to be prepared to run an entire city.”

City Council members were sworn in on the eve of Nov. 30 and then again shortly after midnight on Dec. 1 to en-sure all was legal, DeJulio said.

Th e fi rst order of business was to hire Colorado-based CH2M Hill to run the daily operations of the city.

With a private corporation in place to run the city, the mayor and coun-cil took on its fi rst priority in the com-ing weeks — establishing its own police and fi re departments, with both com-ing online in 2006.

In 2011, the city decided to do away with CH2M Hill and instead go with several private companies to operate in-dividual city government departments like public works and administration. Th is saved the city $7 million in oper-ating costs, DeJulio said.

“In 10 years we have never had a tax increase and we can’t have one without a referendum,” he said. “We run a very lean city.”

During its last year under Fulton County control, Sandy Springs saw $600,000 spent on fi xing roads; in its fi rst year as a city, Sandy Springs spent $7 million, DeJulio said.

In its fi rst decade, Sandy Springs has paved more than 160 miles of roads and also rebuilt 25 miles of roads; the city has paved 20 miles of sidewalks. “None of this was being handled before by Fulton County. Our requests were being ignored,” DeJulio said.

Sandy Springs leadership also knew it was crucial to preserve green space and establish a park system. Th e new city began buying land back from the county and eventually opened up such notable parks as Morgan Falls Over-look Park in 2010 and Abernathy Gre-enway in 2014.

Linda Bain, executive director of the Sandy Springs Conservancy, praises the city’s leadership in ensuring parks re-main a key part of the city’s continuing development.

“We have really strong bones here,” she said of the city’s offi cials.

What is somewhat lacking, howev-er, is a sure Sandy Springs identity. In 2012, the city council approved a mas-ter plan for a $220 million City Cen-ter located on Roswell Road north of I-285. Th e center will include a per-forming arts center, government meet-ing space, and some retail and residen-tial units.

Th e City Center, set to open in De-cember 2017, is expected to give the city a much-needed symbolic site to better establish a city identity, said Axt and DeJulio.

“At one time, Sandy Springs was just a crossroads. Now it has developed into a vibrant, energetic, energized commu-nity,” Axt said.

“We are no longer an experiment,” Axt said. “We’ve always had a sense of belonging and now we are developing a sense of place.”

DeJulio is also optimistic that the City Center will provide the city a much-needed unifying space.

“We really are counting on it bring-ing the community together,” he said. “When I ask people if they live in San-dy Springs and they say, ‘No,’ I al-ways tell them, ‘I’m very sorry. Maybe someday you’ll be lucky enough to live here.’”

John Ruch contributed to this article.


City Council agrees to buy site of abandoned Target store at 235 Johnson Ferry Road for use as a future City Hall. The city pays $8 million for the property in 2008.

Fulton County School Board approves site for new elementary school on Ison Road.

Fulton County School Board approves site for new elementary school on Ison Road.

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City holds birthday eventsTh e city celebrates its 10th anniversary with a Dec. 1 open house and a Dec. 4 birth-

day party at City Hall.Th e open house, on Tues., Dec. 1, comes before that evening’s City Council meeting.

It’s also the exact birthday of the city, which began operations Dec. 1, 2005. Th e free event runs 4 to 5:45 p.m. at 7840 Roswell Road. It will feature guided tours of various city de-partments. For more, see sandyspringsga.gov or call 770-730-5600.

Th e birthday party on Fri., Dec. 4 will include entertainment, food and a “walk down memory lane” with historic images, according to the city. Th e party runs 6:30 to 10 p.m. at the Sherwood Event Facility, 8610 Roswell Road. Tickets are $30 advance, $40 at the door. For ticket information, see bit.ly/1ihyNFR.

2007 2008 20097/8 5/6 9/219/1Record fl oods hit Sandy Springs.

Residents of 98 homes report fl ooding.

Chattahoochee River 911Authority,

generally known asChatcomm, opens.


THEN & NOW

TheSpring

THEN: Cabins around the site of the spring for which the city is named, off of to-day’s Sandy Springs Cir-cle, around 1850. Known as “tents,” the cabins housed at-tendees of United Methodist Church revivals and became the foundation of the San-dy Springs community. (Pho-to: Heritage Sandy Springs)

NOW: The Heritage Sandy Springs Museum stands near the site where the spring re-mains preserved under a pa-vilion. (Photo: John Ruch)

6344 Roswell Rd NESandy Springs, GA 30328

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CongratulationsSANDY SPRINGS

On your10th Anniversary!

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11/3Eva Galamboselected to second

term as mayor.


Open HouseTuesday, December 1, 2015

4:00 – 6:00 p.m.

Tours begin at 4 p.m. Mix and mingle takes place from 4 – 5:45 p.m. followed by a

City Council Meeting at 6 p.m.

Sandy Springs City Hall 7840 Roswell Road, Building 500

Sandy Springs, GA 30350

Evening PartyFriday, December 4, 2015

6:30 – 10:00 p.m.

Sherwood Event Facility8610 Roswell Road, Suite 200

$30 per person in advance ($40 door)� ere will be a small transaction fee

Cash barReserve tickets by 11-27-15

at bit.ly/1ihyNFR

LET’S CELEB� TE THE CITY’S10TH ANNIVERSARY!

Come mingle with your elected o� cials and tour City Hall

Join your neighbors for an evening of celebration of Sandy Springs

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A nniversar y

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SSPCSANDY SPRINGS/PERIMETER

CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

Presented byPresented by


“Sandy Springs, 10 years into its existence, still struggles with our identity,” said Paul in a recent interview. Creating a sense of place and commu-nity through redevelopment remains a priority that will defi ne the city’s next decade, he said.

Th e city’s “Next Ten” planning process is tackling that challenge head-on. Continuing into next year, the process will set new stan-dards for redevelopment, in part by looking closely at both popular areas and neglect-ed corners of the city. Community leaders express optimism about the Next Ten—though with varying degrees of caution.

“I think that they’re probably going to do a very good job of fi guring out which way people want us to go in the future,” said Trisha Th ompson, president of the Sandy Springs Council of Neighbor-hoods.

“I’m eternally optimistic, but I’m defi nitely feeling, as an HOA pres-ident, very hesitant,” said Matt La-Marsh, president of the Mount Ver-non Woods Homeowners Association, who lives in one of the hottest redevel-opment spots at Ga. 400 and Aberna-thy Road.

Everyone agrees that traffi c conges-tion is the city’s biggest challenge. A rebuild of the Ga. 400/I-285 inter-change will be a defi ning project of the next decade, but it’s just part of possi-ble solutions that may bring more lo-cal MARTA stations and transit-ori-

2010 20114/6 4/167/28Groundbreaking for Abernathy Linear Park.

Morgan Falls Overlook Park,

the fi rst park com-pletely developed

by the city, opens to the public.

Sandy Springs Farmers Market opens.

The fi rst markets are held at the city-owned Target site

on Johnson Ferry Road.

Sandy Springs at TenSandy Springs’ development hot spots for the next 10 years

City reinventing itselfCONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

CONTINUED ON PAGE 8

5/17 JuneCity ends using single

contractor, CH2M HILL, to provide city services.

City Council splits up city business and contracts with fi ve diff erent

companies, reducing its cost by $7 million, offi cials say.

Georgia Supreme Court sides with sign companies against

four cities, eliminating billboard restrictions put in place before the areas were incorporated.

Powers Ferry LandingThis business area, fl anking I-285 at the city’s far western border, has long struggled with a sense of identity. Many people don’t realize it’s in Sandy Springs, and Cobb County commuter traffi c is a challenge. The city will try to rouse what founding Mayor Eva Galambos once called a “sleeping giant.”

Pill HillThe medical area is anchored by three rapidly expanding hospitals—Northside, Emory St. Joseph’s and Children’s Healthcare—and is starting to see residential development that could continue, espe-cially around MARTA’s Medical Center station. A big planning question is how Pill Hill will cope with its nightmarish rush-hour traffi c.

Gateway/south Roswell Road As with the northern stretch of Roswell Road, the city envisions walkable, mixed-use developments. An early test of that vision comes next year as the huge Gateway mixed-use project opens on the Atlanta border, with over 20 acres of stores and hundreds of apartments. The city already plans to alter the Roswell and Windsor Parkway intersection to handle the new traffi c.

City SpringsThe crown jewel of the city’s fi rst decade of planning, this $220 million redevelopment will create a new City Hall, concert halls, parks, apartments and commercial spaces. It’s slated to open in late 2017. Big as it is, City Springs is just part of a larger plan for a new, mixed-use downtown that private developers are already starting to build in some older shopping centers.

North Roswell RoadThe northern section of the city’s main thoroughfare is mostly known for strip malls, older apartments and the offi ce park where City Hall is currently located. The city envisions “nodes” of walkable, mixed-use mini-neighborhoods replacing today’s highway feel.

MARTA Northridge stationMARTA proposes a new station at Ga. 400 and Northridge Road as part of a fi ve-station extension of the Red Line to Alpharetta. That’s not a done deal and would be years away. But existing MARTA stations are sparking transit-oriented redevelopment, and the city is planning ahead for a Northridge area boom.

Abernathy Road/Ga. 400Surrounded by some of the largest undevel-oped tracts in town, this major interchange area is seeing a major boom that will roll into the next decade. On the west side, the Mercedes-Benz USA headquarters is coming in 2018, along with huge Ashton Woods housing developments. On the east side, there are stalled plans for an offi ce skyscraper, a luxury hotel and more. And MARTA’s North Springs station could see a Red Line extension boom.

In its fi rst 10 years, the city focused on planning a new “downtown” on central Roswell Road. In its “Next Ten” planning process underway—including a revised land-use plan and a new zoning code—the city is eyeing a wider variety of devel-opment opportunities and challenges. Some are places where the city hopes to spotlight, like Powers Ferry Landing. Some are places where the city is preparing for other agencies’ plans, such as MARTA’s proposed Red Line expansion. This map shows Sandy Springs’ likely development hot spots of the next decade.

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SANDY ABRAMS

Happy 10th Anniversary

and to many more years of great success!

We’ve gotyou covered!

Cityhood for Sandy Springs 10 years ago was the catalyst to launch Reporter Newspapers.

We look forward to covering every milestone in the city’s history for

years to come.

ented development. Sandy Springs, a city founded on localism, likely will join in more regional planning, offi-cials say.

“I see a crystal ball that looks very bright, very promising,” said Yvonne Williams, president and CEO of the Perimeter Center Improvement Dis-tricts, describing Sandy Springs as poised to seize opportunities and over-come challenges.

A SENSE OF PLACEIt drives the mayor crazy when lo-

cals use “Atlanta” rather than “San-dy Springs” in their street addresses, or when people think the King and Queen buildings are the city’s down-town.

“Part of [the future] is to create this larger sense of community…the sense of place like Marietta has, like Decatur has,” Paul said.

City Springs is a massive attempt to do that by combining a new City Hall, performing arts center and parks with a mixed-use project. When it opens in 2017, it should anchor a more walk-able downtown. And, Paul said, it will tie together some disparate San-dy Springs neighborhoods, like the southern end around Chastain Park or the panhandle that often identifies as Dunwoody.

“That’s a legacy project,” said City Manager John McDonough. “I think even five years from now, you’ll see a completely different landscape. I think [there will be] more focus on commu-nity, more interaction among people.”

But even as it builds that landmark project, the city is looking ahead to a different kind of place-making. In-stead of rebuilding entire neighbor-hoods, the next phase is more about adding to them. Paul said he’d like to see the rest of Roswell Road lined with small, walkable clusters of shops and restaurants instead of shopping cen-ters—“a little community meeting space, if you will.”

“We want to broaden the horizon of what a neighborhood is,” he said. “In the next 10 years, that’s kind of our vision.”

THE NEXT TENThe Next Ten process is how San-

dy Springs will put such visions on paper. Among the results will be a new Comprehensive Plan of land-use

guidelines; a new, unified zoning and building code; and several “Small Area Plans” giving detailed visions of such areas as Roswell Road’s northern and southern reaches.

“The focus on the next 10 years is different from the first 10 years,” said McDonough. “The first 10 years fo-cused on creating the delivery system” for city services, planning and infra-structure, he said. Now it’s about de-livering the products, especially City Springs, but also the more refined in-put process of the Next Ten.

“We should have broad communi-ty support. If we don’t, we missed our mark,” McDonough said of the devel-opment that will follow the Next Ten guidelines. “In the end, it should be the community’s plan.”

Thompson, the Council of Neigh-borhoods president, said the Next Ten isn’t exactly grassroots planning, but does involve more public input than ever.

“I’m not sure it is building [a plan] on public input, but I truly believe this new crew [of planners], they are scouring every nook and corner of Sandy Springs they can think of to garner opinion,” she said.

Thompson said the future of San-dy Springs lies in pushing for high-er-quality development standards, and that the current mayor and City Council are more responsive to that, especially after the Glenridge Hall es-tate controversy earlier this year. “They see the older homes coming down. They see trees coming down,” she said.

All developers know how to build projects that contribute to a good quality of life, Thompson said, adding, “It’s just whether we can force them to do it in Sandy Springs and not bring their cheap end.”

LaMarsh isn’t as convinced that the city’s leaders are on the right track. He and wife Melissa are part of San-dy Springs’ post-cityhood generation, having moved here from Acworth four years ago to be closer to Atlanta and start a family in a “dynamic commu-nity.”

“We certainly got it,” LaMarsh said with a laugh. The land surrounding their neighborhood is now the site of two enormous and controversial hous-ing plans by developer Ashton Woods. LaMarsh has been a leader in the de-bates, at one point threatening to sue, and more recently helping broker a key compromise.

There’s no guarantee that city lead-ers will stick to the new development

guidelines, LaMarsh said. And he wor-ries that most big parcels will be built out already with less thoughtful proj-ects.

“My concern here is the damage has been done and it’s going to be hard for us to climb out of [existing projects],” he said. “My fear is we’ve moved a lit-tle too far, a little too fast.”

However, LaMarsh counts himself a fan of some pending projects, includ-ing City Springs.

“I think the future of the city is bright and we do have some good things coming down the pipe,” he said. “Hopefully we can continue to protect the neighborhoods that kind of made Sandy Springs, Sandy Springs.”

TRAFFIC AND TRANSITWith all of the growth comes traf-

fic, and solutions to it may reshape sev-eral parts of the city. The billion-dollar project to add lanes on Ga. 400/I-285 will start in about a year and wrap up in 2020. But potentially even more land-scape-changing is MARTA’s proposed Red Line extension to Alpharetta. The Next Ten includes transit-oriented de-velopment studies around the existing North Springs station and a potential Northridge Road station.

“Long term, to absorb population growth…we need to have more efficient transportation, and the only way we’re going to do it is mass transit,” said Mayor Paul. “Unless you have transit…we are going to drown in traffic, and we’re going to kill the goose that lays the golden egg and destroy our quality of life.”

While it may not feel like it at rush hour, “We’re ahead of the curve” on long-term traffic solutions, said the PCIDs’ Williams. The Perimeter Center’s future includes shuttle systems, more sidewalks and multi-use trails, and more east-west connection roads. Other possibilities in-clude a bus rapid-transit route along the Perimeter to Cobb County, she said.

“We’re going to see a very walkable district,” said Williams.

In fact, the future may be large-ly about getting Sandy Springs out of its car. Walkability is key to the sort of place-making the mayor envisions at both City Springs and the mini-neigh-borhoods of Roswell Road.

“If we can do that over the next 10 years,” Paul said, “we’ll be a long way to-ward making Sandy Springs the most en-viable community of [metro] Atlanta.”

2012 2013Metro voters reject

T-SPLOST, a regional tax that would have raised

$6 billion for transportation improvements.

City settles dispute with billboard companies.

City officials agree to allow 10 new signs, but limits them

along Roswell Road.

Consultant Goody Clancy pro-poses a downtown redevelopment

anchored at the Target site that includes a street grid and a network of green spaces.

Sandy Springs at TenCONTINUED FROM PAGE 6

Mayor Eva Galambos announces her retirement

at the end of her second term.

ReporterNewspapers


11/5 12/5

from your neighborhood centers,on the City’s 10 Year Anniversary!

Visit Us:Roswell Road & Johnson Ferry Road

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Rank inpopulation among

Georgia cities

Median value ofowner-occupied house

Median household

IncomeGeorgia $49,179

Total number of business firms

Percent of firms owned by women

FOREIGNBORN

RESIDENTS

OWN HOMESVS. 65% GA

housing units in multi-unit structures

MINUTES MEANTRAVEL TIME TO WORK

Rank in residents among Georgia cities

It also has two of the TALLESTSUBURBAN

TOWERS in the United States

Pictured: King and Queen buildings

White 59% Black 20%Hispanic 14%Asian 5%Other 3%

#7

$424,700

$63,134

13,34129.4%

20%

47%

56%25.2

101,908Sandy Springs by the Numbers

101,908Rank in residents among

It also has two of 47%

speaking a language other than English

at home

26%

25.2$63,134

Created by Reporter Newspapers | ReporterNewspapers.netSources: U.S. Census, Wikipedia.org

Some icons made by www.fl aticon.com are licensed by Creative Commons BY 3.0

White 59% Black 20%Hispanic 14%Asian 5%Other 3%


Rusty Paul elected mayor.

Eva Galambos turns the mayor’s gavel over to Rusty Paul. She says farewell with a poem that concludes: “It’s been a great eight years/we’ve tackled small and big aff airs/we set a tone for those to follow/I have no fears about tomorrow.”

11/5Rusty Paul

elected mayor.


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Sandy Springs at Ten - Other Views

THEN & NOW

King and Queen/ Ga. 400

THEN: Ga. 400 and the “King” tower at the Concourse at Land-mark Center under construc-

tion, alongside the completed “Queen” tower, around 1990 in this Georgia State University Archives photo on dis-play at Heritage Sandy Spring’s ex-hibit “Sandy Springs: Then & Now.”

NOW: Ga. 400 and the King and Queen towers as seen from the Johnson Fer-ry Road overpass. (Photo: John Ruch)

For the first six years of its existence, the Sandy Springs Council of Neighborhoods worked directly with Fulton County on behalf of the neighborhoods. We

dealt with seven commissioners, only one of whom had our interests at heart.

We had successes. However, we still suffered while watch-ing huge amounts of our tax dollars being diverted to both north and south Fulton. Our roads were potholed, police and fire departments were understaffed for the needs of the community, and the response times were bad.

Since cityhood, we’ve gained award-winning fire and po-lice departments as well as a volunteer COPS program that’s a big success. We’ve gained better roads and more sidewalks.

We’ve gained the cleanup of garbage-strewn, deteriorated sections of town. We’ve gained repairs of broken stormwater systems. We’ve gained more and better parks. We’ve also gained a traffic control system that helps the traffic flow along Roswell and Abernathy roads.

None—not one—of these would have been implemented at the level of quali-ty we have seen had we not become a city. Yes, we have rezonings that bring addi-tional traffic, but this would have occurred even in Fulton County—and, believe me, with far less care, less quality and less thought given to impact mitigation. If you look at the total picture and the total scorecard, we’ve gained, and those gains are huge.

For our future, the challenge will be to control quality. The concerns need to be focused on: the quality of the homes and projects being built; the quality of our natural environment—preservation of trees and green space; the quality of our schools; and our quality of life. Traffic is a huge detriment to our quality of life today. Infill development is of major concern in the neighborhoods. We don’t think anyone is against more people—it’s just how to include them without chop-ping down all the trees and gridlocking our roads.

We do want new businesses. We will have new residents. We want everyone to share a fantastic quality of life in a beautiful city.

Trisha Thompson is the president of the Sandy Springs Council of Neighborhoods.

Is Sandy Springs better off now than we were 10 years ago? Was incorporation worth it?

Whenever I attend community or civic events, I am always struck by the tremendous pride that our residents, business owners and government leaders have for their home town. There is a pas-sion and a spirit of cooperation that exists in Sandy Springs that I be-lieve is the direct result of our incorporation 10 years ago. Certainly, things like the groundbreaking of City Springs, new road improve-ments, the addition of sidewalks and parks, and the city’s strong fi-nancial condition and high bond rating are all tangible accomplish-ments we can point to, but it is the intangible component of our civic pride coupled with strong leadership that makes all these things possible.

Both our city and our chamber celebrate their 10th birthdays this year and this is an ex-citing time of reflection for us. In the past decade, we have seen iconic international com-panies move their corporate headquarters to Sandy Springs. We have also seen many bud-ding small businesses get their start here, including our company, Bank of Sandy Springs, which opened here in 2014 to help invest in the future of our community.

We have seen the expansion of our public and private schools, and we’ve seen the de-velopment and construction of some beautiful neighborhoods and homes within our city. Our long-time residents are staying here, and new residents are coming here because of the quality of life and the quality of community that Sandy Springs offers.

We know that success and growth come with their own set of challenges, and build-ing and maintaining a strong community infrastructure requires vision and hard work. Because we are our own city, we control our financial and strategic planning decisions in ways that were unavailable to us 10 years ago. For these reasons, incorporation has given the residents and leaders of Sandy Springs more control over their city’s destiny.

Our mission will be to keep the fire that we feel for our city today burning for decades to come, and to pass on our sense of pride to the next generation of residents and leaders. If we do this effectively, then Sandy Springs will continue to enjoy its current level of suc-cess and prosperity, and will continue to be Georgia’s greatest city.

Chris Burnett is market president of the Bank of Sandy Springs and chairman of the board of the Sandy Springs/Perimeter Chamber of Commerce.

2014 20151/6 1/6 3/9 4/19 9/207/17

Chris Burnett Trisha Thompson

City begins demolition of old

Target store.

Abernathy Greenway Park

opens.

Mercedes-Benz USA announces plans to

move its headquarters from New Jersey to

Sandy Springs.

City issues demolition permits for Glenridge Hall.

Eva Galambos dies at age 87.

City officials announce

the new city center will be called “City Springs.”


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Congratulations to the City of Sandy Springs on its 10th Anniversary.

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Congratulations to the city of Sandy Springs on turning 10! Prior to the city’s formation in 2005, many people worked for decades to make it happen.

Two primary goals of the innovative new city were to control the services provided to citizens/businesses and to control develop-ment. Due to the necessity of delivering services and the real estate recession of 2008-2012, we now see development—both new proj-ects and how the city addresses future development—begin to have a significant impact on the direction of the city.

My perspective extends 36 years, having attended high school in Sandy Springs, lived half of those years here, and worked for compa-nies all with a Sandy Springs address.

The great news in Sandy Springs regarding development is plen-tiful. The city’s southern boundary is improving with the Sandy Springs Gateway proj-ect at Windsor and other development moving up Roswell Road from there. The eastern boundary at Perimeter Center is truly seeing a live-work-play environment unfold.

Downtown Sandy Springs is poised for the biggest change, with perhaps the most lo-cal impact toward quality of life (a “real” downtown) wanted by many who live and work in Sandy Springs. Projects underway or expected to start soon should create more devel-opment in downtown than has occurred in the last 20 years combined. This is led by City Springs, the public-private partnership development under construction, that will deliv-er a new City Hall and performing arts venue, private mixed-use development and open space. This development and others announced should create the critical mass needed.

So what are the significant challenges? I see two. One, land use and zoning, and two, Roswell Road north of Abernathy to the city of Roswell border.

The city is currently in the process of updating its zoning ordinances and procedures. I commend the leadership of the mayor and council for initiating this. Lengthy, controver-sial zonings are counterproductive. From a developer’s perspective, time is usually not our ally. Windows of opportunity open up in our business but do not remain forever. A more efficient, interest-aligned process will benefit all stakeholders.

Roswell Road north of Abernathy should be the city’s next big platform for change. The road is a primary artery serving a significant portion of the city. I believe more public-private initiatives will be needed.

As I look ahead, and knowing the probable developments to come out of the ground, I do see a city moving in a great direction and the new real estate developments having a significant contribution to the success of the city.

Kirk S. Demetrops is president of MidCity Real Estate Partners.

Not so long ago, the Wall Street Journal highlighted 20 trou-bled American cities and how Chapter 11 bankruptcy ap-pears to be the only option to wipe the slate clean and start

over. How can such a municipal mess be avoided? One suggestion may

be to look at the city of Sandy Springs and its model for providing city services. Ten years ago, when Sandy Springs incorporated, the model of outsourcing was viewed with skepticism. But as the com-munity celebrates it first decade, evidence of accomplishments is in full view: miles of roads paved, new parks and construction under-way to create an epicenter for the community. All accomplished with-

out a tax increase. Before cityhood, Sandy Springs was part of unincorporated Fulton County, and res-

idents were poorly policed while paying high taxes for few services. That is why I made it my main mission to get the cityhood legislation ratified by the General Assembly, so it could go to the voters. There was an unwavering desire for governance close to home, and that is what Sandy Springs has today. Those making decisions on behalf of the communi-ty live within that same community. There is a greater level of accountability. Accessibility also matters, and if you ask any of the members of the Sandy Springs City Council, past or present, they hear from their constituents frequently, via phone calls and emails, as well as in the grocery line and at local events.

It is gratifying to see the positive chain reaction that has occurred since 2005, with oth-er cities and counties opting for more privatization of services. In addition to the business model, there is a sense of ownership within the Sandy Springs community. This is a city comprised of residents who feel empowered and who exercise their right to voice an opin-ion. They also frequently back up the talk with action. The community is strengthened by its volunteerism, as is evidenced by groups such as the conservancy and Leadership San-dy Springs, which have been instrumental in the increase in parks and programs within the city. And both the police and fire departments have troops of volunteers providing as-sistance from house checks to manning water rehab tents during emergencies. They give. The city gives. It works.

As Sandy Springs celebrates 10 years, it’s a good time to say congratulations on think-ing different, taking the risk and a job well done. It will be interesting to watch what we do as a community in our next 10 years.

Joe Wilkinson represents District 52 in the state House of Representatives.

Kirk S. Demetrops Rep. Joe Wilkinson


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Dunwoody

BrookhavenBrookhavenBrookhavenSandy Springs

DunwoodySandy Springs

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