| Tucker Summit CID August 2022 Newsletter
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With a background in commercial sales in the multi-family, hospitality, healthcare and manufacturing sectors, the City of Tucker’s Economic Development Manager Jackie Moffo tells people that she just “fell” into economic development. Following her sales career, she gained further experience as the Athens-Clarke County’s Economic Development Department’s Business Development Specialist, worked as the Vice President of Business Development for a metro Seattle nonprofit and on the Economic Development Board for Tacoma-Pierce County. Jackie viewed the Economic Development Manager position in Tucker as an opportunity too good to pass up and was excited to move back to Georgia.
Jackie has been diligently working on Tucker’s Economic Strategic Plan, which will include focus on exciting projects such as a 33-mile Tucker trail plan, which has already poured its first section. Several segments would expand into the district at Lawrenceville Highway, Hugh Howell Road and along Camp Creek and South Peachtree Creek (view full trail plan here). The comprehensive plan will also help the city better support its current industries and learn which industries to target to attract new employers to Tucker.
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Until her Tucker position, Jackie had not heard of Community Improvement Districts but is now grateful for the partnership the organization offers her.
“I just want to say ‘thank you’ to the Tucker Summit CID and the Tucker community for your amazing efforts. Tucker’s reputation for being a business-friendly community and a great place to live and work is really the economic development foundation for everything else I do.”
Jackie states that the successful business community already in place makes it much easier to attract new businesses. She believes that sales and economic development are closely related, and if she can sell a product, she can sell a city – and Tucker makes it easy.
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With its recent announcement of seven new tenants, Hugh Howell Marketplace is now fully leased! Chase Bank, Cold Stone Creamery, Bite of Korea, Queen Nail Bar, Magical Waxing, Flawless Repair and Batteries Plus will be opening their doors soon.
The 90,000-square foot development, anchored by Publix, opened in late 2021. Stores and restaurants, including Piedmont Urgent Care, First Watch!, Jersey Mike’s, Buffalo Wild Wings Go, The Joint Chiropractic, ATI Physical Therapy and Scenthound have gradually opened throughout the spring and summer of 2022 with Antico Pizza Napoletana and gusto! scheduled to open in the fall.
Branch Properties sold Hugh Howell Marketplace to Stockbridge, a real estate investment management firm, as part of a larger portfolio transaction in April of this year, while Branch retains minority ownership and handles the leasing and property management .
This is incredible and exciting news as our district nears full capacity!
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| On August 10, PepsiCo’s broke ground on the $260 million expansion of its manufacturing facility in the City of Tucker. The expansion will create at least 136 new full-time jobs, increasing the company’s total workforce in DeKalb County to more than 600 full-time jobs.
The new facility will:
- Create 136 new jobs – including driver, production operator, and mechanic positions
- Provide more opportunities for local employee career growth by creating and providing extensive training for higher skilled jobs
- Produce 65 million cases of product per year, 5x the amount of the current facility
Pepsico will expand its facility at 1644 Rock Mountain Boulevard by more than 260,000 square feet, with expected completion in late 2024. The expanded advanced manufacturing plant will increase production five-fold by 2025, making it one of the largest manufacturing facilities in the company’s portfolio.
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On Monday, August 8, The Tucker City Council moved forward with awarding KB Advisory Group with a contract to create Tucker’s first Economic Development Strategic Plan. Tucker Summit CID will have an active role by working with Tucker-Northlake CID, the Tucker Downtown Development Authority and the City of Tucker and contributing $10,000 in funds toward the plan’s development.
The City of Tucker began work on the Strategic Plan in the fall of 2021, which essentially took a regional look at all community strategic plans and selected the ideas most appropriate to Tucker’s needs. The plan will encompass best practices in targeting businesses and industries that will best serve the city and its residents, with the goal of keeping people employed in the community in which they live.
Work with KB Advisory Group is to begin immediately with a projected completion date of March 2023.
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After more than a year of feasibility studies, Tucker Summit CID, working in conjunction with Gateway85 CID, Gwinnett County, DeKalb County and MARTA, plans to launch a new CID-funded transit line to help hundreds of workers get to their jobs more easily beginning this fall. This transit line will be the first in the state that has been planned and launched by two cooperating CIDs.
Deemed The Incredible Corridor, the two-mile stretch of road from Jimmy Carter Boulevard in Gwinnett County to Mountain Industrial Boulevard in DeKalb County has limited transit and transportation options within multiple transit agency jurisdictions. Yet employers along this corridor employ more than 15,000 people and there are significant concentrations of multi-family housing as well. Until now, there has been no coordinated transit service that takes advantage of the potential jobs and housing connections along the corridor – that is until this fall.
TSCID President Emory Morsberger has been working to coordinate and launch the service for more than a year, and the goal is to go live with four, 25-person buses in early October. Morsberger not only worked to identify the transit gap but has coordinated with more than 30 of the combined areas’ largest employers – all of whom need to attract and retain employees in the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The goal is to launch in early October with four buses that will be available at peak shift change hours and be free to riders along the Incredible Corridor. The route, which will begin and end at the Doraville MARTA station, is currently being finalized, and we are hoping to work with even more employers to identify added stops along the route,” he added.
A website is in the works, which will provide information to employers and riders about the route, service times and more. The CIDs plan to work with property management companies, community nonprofits and faith-based organizations to spread the word to potential riders to use the service. In addition, the program helps to plug into existing van pools and carpools to further help employees get to their places of employment.
Stay tuned for more details soon!
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Ricoh Regional Facilities Manager Mike Wilkerson has been with the company for more than 35 years and oversees the Southeast region from Miami, Florida to St. Louis, Missouri, as far west as Texas and everything in between. The 142,000-square-foot Tucker facility is the only building in Ricoh’s portfolio that is company-owned.
The building was originally built in 1977 for a company called Lanier, which Ricoh bought in 2000 and has owned and occupied ever since. Officially, the Tucker Ricoh location employs 450 people, but since the pandemic, only 50 workers are in the building daily. Ricoh plans to gradually bring all 450 employees back into the office when it is safe to do so. However, there are discussions of moving employees from the leased offices in Duluth and Lawrenceville to Tucker’s facility.
As an active participant in many of the CID’s meetings and gatherings, Mike has expressed how pleased he is with the CID’s work and accomplishments. He greatly appreciates the road improvements, security patrols and assistance Ricoh received in getting the flag poles at the building’s entrance approved.
The Tucker location is used primarily as a customer service and training facility and looks forward to many more years of continued success and growth in Tucker.
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TSCID has been working with Construction 57 Inc. all summer to repair sidewalks, curb radii, gutters, catch basins and other damaged concrete infrastructure along Mountain Industrial Boulevard.
Thank you for your patience as we continue to improve our district!
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TSCID has also been working with Georgia Power to increase lighting throughout the district and has accelerated the plan to complete phase 1, new metal poles and lighting along N Royal Atlanta and S Royal Atlanta, by the end of 2022.
By improving the lighting, we will be paving the way to making our district an even safer place to do business.
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| Helping Ukraine, One Drill Set at a Time
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Read more about Emory’s mission trip to Ukraine in the Rotary blog. Consider visiting HelpingUkraine.us on August 24, Ukraine Independence Day to watch One Day for Ukraine.
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| City of Tucker Overlay Regulations
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Make sure your planned signage and architectural structures are within regulations! Review the Tucker Overlay District Regulations on our website.
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| Contact Emory Morsberger with Late Breaking News
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For any incidents causing major traffic conflicts or safety issues within the district, please contact Emory Morsberger immediately at 770.409-8100, so he can distribute communications and inform all members and associates as necessary.
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| Have Space? Looking to Sell?List Properties on the TSCID Website
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The TSCID website can now help promote your available commercial property listings!
If you have a property available in the district, please send a flyer with details to our communications team to post on our website.
Our district is an incredible place to do business!
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| TSCID Resources Directory: Refer a Contractor
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TSCID would like to help our members by creating a resources directory on our website.
Have a “go-to” company for electrical, plumbing, accounting, construction or any other critical service? Let us know and we’ll include them in our “Referred Resources” directory.
*Resources will be listed solely on the recommendation of our members. TSCID makes no endorsements or guarantees on quality or delivery.
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