According to Decaturish, Superintendent Phyllis Edwards made a “surprise announcement” at tonight’s Board of Education meeting.

Decatur High Principal Lauri McKain will become CSD’s new Director of Secondary Education.  McKain will remain Principal of Decatur High through the end of the 2013-14 school year.

The move comes less than a year after it was announced that Oakhurst Principal Mary Mack would become CSD’s Director of Elementary Education.

More info as we have it.

From Real Estate BizNow…

Essex Point Properties purchased One West Court Square Two, a 13k SF retail center in Downtown Decatur, for $7.7M, or a whopping $589/SF. (Aren’t there supposed to be post holiday sales happening?)

The fully occupied center is leased to SunTrust, Chipotle, Cook’s Warehouse, and Sherlock’s Wine Merchants. (So you can hit up the SunTrust and then have a hell of an afternoon for yourself without ever leaving the parking lot.) Ackerman & Co’s Shea Meddin and Jason Powell (seen here) brokered the sale for the firm, which owned the property.

Photo courtesy of Google Streetview

Michael points to this blurb on Tomorrow’s News Today.…

Arden’s Garden is planning five new metro Atlanta locations according to company CEO Leslie Zinn, daughter of founder Arden Zinn.   Arden Zinn was a trailblazer in the world of juicing back in 1995 and has steadily grown her business via both wholesale accounts like Publix and Whole Foods, and though their own retail network.   Arden’s Garden currently has seven locations around metro Atlanta, including Buckhead, midtown and Sandy Springs.  In March, another location is slated for Emory Walk on Clairmont Road in Decatur.  The center is home to TAPS Craft Beers as well as Los Loros Mexican restaurant.  Another location is scheduled to open in the former Atlanta Daily World Building on Auburn Avenue.  Other areas being scouted for future locations include Alpharetta, Peachtree City and Vinings.

• Decatur burglaries up 38% in 2013 vs. 2012 [Decaturish]
• DPD racial profiling investigation could wrap up as early as next week [Patch]
• Decatur home remodel featured in AJC [uh...AJC]
• Report from the ARC pop-up meeting [Decaturish]
• Poncey-Highland church looking to sell off land to build mixed-use [Curbed]
• Downtown Atlanta among New York Times’ 52 places to go in 2014 [ATL Urbanist]

The Atlanta Regional Commission announced the 2014 recipients of the Livable Centers Initiative grants yesterday.  Among the recipients were the neighboring cities of Avondale and Clarkston.  Here are the descriptions of the grants for the two cities…

City of Avondale Estates, $50,000, to study the feasibility of a roundabout, road diet and “Better Block” demonstration project.
City of Clarkston, $80,000, for a major plan update.

This is the second straight year that Avondale has received a grant.  In 2013, the city received a grant for a “major plan update and a downtown master plan”.