This week in sales meeting for Atlanta Fine Homes Sotheby’s International Realty, Brandon Beach, president of the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce shared with us with some exciting news on economic development and transportation for the entire North Fulton area.
The Greater North Fulton Chamber covers all parts of metro Atlanta that are North of Wieuca Road. More specifically, the areas include Sandy Springs, Roswell, Alpharetta, Mountain Park, Milton, and Johns Creek. Beach spoke to us today about their program with Progress Partners, working with Gwinnett Technical college on opening a technical college in North Fulton, and their transit initiation.
- Progress Partners is the Chamber’s commitment to economic development, creating or working with companies to create jobs, and overall the quality of life in North Fulton. · The Technical College Initiative is to focus on education and create jobs for North Fulton. Currently they have submitted various spaces and options to Gwinnett Technical as places for the college to use in the North Fulton area. One suggested space was the Old Milton High School in the heart of downtown Alpharetta.· The Transit Initiative is something that Beach has personally been involved in as well as serving on the Department of Transportation Board. The transit initiative is looking at a system that would run from Windward Parkway to Perimeter and then over to Kennesaw. It has been suggested that uniting the transportation service providers to one new brand (MARTA, CCT, etc) with expanded routes that connected to one another more seamlessly and under one new brand name would take Atlanta to the next level in regards to public transportation.
The Chamber is also focused on finding logistics and IT companies around the country to relocate to the North Fulton area. Specific states where they are targeting businesses includes Jew Jersey, New York, California, and Illinois. Illinois makes a great target for the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce because they have recently raised the corporate income tax rate 66%.
The first question from companies who are considering relocating to metro Atlanta is about our schools. North Fulton was recently recognized has having eight of the top schools in the state according to Atlanta magazine. The Chamber is continuing to grow and work with existing companies in the area such as Lexus Nexus and Kimberly Clark.
Recently the North Fulton area has had three large companies expand into the area.
· Hewlett Packard expanded into North Fulton with 200 jobs. Most of those new jobs will be local hires with some executives relocating to the area.
· Vesta moved into the area with 500 new jobs and it is estimated that 400 of those will be local hires.
· The CEO from Thyseen Krup was so impressed with our schools, recreation and Alpharetta area overall they decided to move their IT operations from Michigan to Alpharetta which will translate into over 100 new positions, and they have plans for continued expansion.
In all, the message was very positive with growth on the horizon for our North Fulton. Education, affordable housing, and job opportunities help drive companies to our area and the Chamber is very in tune with those needs and working each day to help attract more and more businesses to our area.
To get more information on the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce or to get involved, click on http://www.gnfcc.com/