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8 | Perimeter Business
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As city authorities grant tax breaks, school districts eye budget impacts
Continued from page 5
executed abatement deals sparingly in
the years since the cities incorporat
ed - all within the past 14 years. But the
deals add up to millions of dollars in tax
abatements on major and sometimes
controversial projects.
Broolchaven’s authority has grant
ed an $11 million abatement on its sin
gle deal. Sandy Springs’ five “phantom
lease” deals total millions in abatements.
And Dunwoody’s half-dozen deals total
about $46.3 million in abatements.
In Brookhaven and Sandy Springs,
the authorities have negotiated pay
ments in lieu of taxes, or PILOT, to pay
for additional improvements as a kind
of bonus.
Broolchaven’s $11 abatement for the
Hawks facility in Executive Park - tout
ed by officials as making the area an
“NBA city” - includes $302,900 annu
al PILOT over the 15-year “lease,” which
started in 2018. The city and the author
ity are using the money to buy a former
gas station on Buford Highway, which
is intended to be an ambulance station
and a future redevelopment site.
The Sandy Springs Development Au
thority has granted abatements to proj
ects that, in City Council meetings, were
praised as modernizations by some and
criticized by others for boosting densi
ty and traffic. They include the massive
Gateway mixed-use project on the Buck-
head border, which replaced an apart
ment complex targeted by the city; the
Modera apartments on Roswell Road;
and the Aston apartments within the
city’s own City Springs civic center.
Kraun said that the deals for all of
those projects involve PILOT agree
ments that return a significant por
tion of the tax savings to the city in the
form of infrastructure improvements.
For Gateway, about 72% of the savings,
or $770,000, went to a Windsor Park
way/Roswell Road realignment at its
driveway. Modera put 25% of its sav
ings, about $675,000, to building an ad
jacent public street called Denmark
Drive. And about 33% of Aston’s savings,
or $770,000, is earmarked for “public in
frastructure” in City Springs.
“These benefits are in addition to the
jobs these companies bring to our city
and the enhancement of the City’s tax
base,” Kraun said.
Opinions still vary on whether such
projects are worth the subsidies. Former
City Councilmember Karen Meinzen
McEnerny opposed the Gateway project
at the time and still does. “I don’t think
it delivered what the community expect
ed. Its design is not pedestrian-friendly
with frontages being covered in adver
tising,” she said.
“It’s a wonderful project and has
been very successful for the city,” said
Councilmember Tibby Dejulio.
The Dunwoody Development Author
ity doesn’t use PILOT deals, but does in
clude certain requirements, such as job
numbers, that owners must meet to re
tain the tax break, according to Starling,
the economic development director.
The fee the authority collects on deals -
one-eighth of 1% - has left it with about
$889,000 in the bank, which it is consid
ering spending on promotion or infra
structure improvements in Dunwoody
Village or Georgetown.
The authority’s deals include a $33.8
million abatement, over 14 years, for
the first two skyscrapers in State Farm’s
massive new campus at Hammond
Drive and Perimeter Center Parkway. A
longtime argument for abatements is
that everyone does them, a point Star
ling echoed in explaining how Dun
woody aims to remain competitive for
office towers.
“My belief is every Class A office
building, certainly within DeKalb and
Fulton, had a tax abatement structure
on them ... I have not heard of a new
office building that didn’t have abate
ments,” he said.
Dunwoody’s first abatements, grant
ed in 2012, were an estimated total of
$8.2 million over 10 years for the reno
vation of office buildings at 64 and 66
Perimeter Center East. The idea was to
help the landlord offer lower rents, Star
ling said. State Farm has since leased
both entire buildings. However, Starling
said, it is “hard to say if State Farm came
because of the abatement.” The building
was already leasing well at that time,
around 2018.
The Dunwoody authority is now ne
gotiating two more major abatement
deals: a possible $2.3 million break for
the Perimeter Market project on Ash-
ford-Dunwoody Road and a possible $19
million abatement for the gigantic, long-
stalled High Street project across Ham
mond from the State Farm campus. It
remains to be seen how the public will
respond to those mega-deals.
“I certainly understand the critics
and there should be conversations and
debate on how we provide incentives to
any private businesses,” said Starling.
“Every project is different. Transparen
cy is important.”
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[Left to Right: Sam Tortorici; MaryJane LeCroy, CFP®; and Bill
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