Brian Hooker Out At Fort McPherson's Redevelopment Agency
The head of Fort McPherson's redevelopment effort has resigned from the agency after recent reports of infighting and questions about the proposed master developer.
Brian Hooker, the executive director of the Fort McPherson Implementing Local Redevelopment Authority, which is better known as the Fort Mac LRA, submitted his resignation Wednesday to the board, leaving the proposed $700M mixed-use redevelopment plan in a cloud of uncertainty, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
The Fort Mac LRA board approved Hooker's resignation and, in his place, named Invest Atlanta Senior Vice President Alan Ferguson as the interim executive director as it searches for a replacement. Invest Atlanta is the economic development arm for the city of Atlanta.
Hooker's resignation is the latest twist in the saga to redevelop the remaining 145 acres of Fort McPherson, a decommissioned U.S. Army base that closed in 2011. The LRA took over all 488 acres of the base in 2015, then sold 330 acres to Atlanta filmmaker Tyler Perry for $30M. Perry has since developed a massive film studio campus on the property.
Atlanta developer Stephen Macauley had been tapped to develop the master plan for the remaining 145 acres, which would include 4M SF of different commercial uses. But in February, relations between Macauley and the LRA appeared to go sideways, with some questioning Macauley's ability to finance the ambitious project, and Macauley accusing the authority of creating needless delays, the AJC reported.
At the same time, Perry has come forward and expressed interest in the remaining acreage at Fort McPherson, the AJC reported. It was unclear if Macauley was still in consideration to become the master developer of the project. The next board meeting is scheduled for Aug. 8.
Most recently, Easterly Government Properties put the former Fort McPherson Forces Command Headquarters under contract with plans to use it to house the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as it moves from its current Midtown location. The new facility will be home to the Atlanta district office and laboratories, employing some 350 scientists and staff.
“Fort Mac will work out. It may take different players,” Robinson Weeks Partners CEO Forrest Robinson told a Bisnow audience at a recent Aerotropolis event. Robinson Weeks has been the master developer for another nearby shuttered Army base, Fort Gillem. That project, now called Gillem Logistics Center, has been geared more toward distribution center operators.
“The people want business down here,” Robinson said. "And [the local governments] accommodate you for that. And we don't see that in a lot of communities."
