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AFCO Realty, LLC
4200 Northside Parkway, N.W.
Building 12
Atlanta, GA 30327-3049
404-233-1700
www.afcorealty.com
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NEWS RELEASE
OCTOBER 2, 2006 -- The BeltLine Partnership, Inc. has announced the appointment of Sam Friedman, founder and chairman of AFCO Realty, to its Board of Directors.
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Launched in July of 2005, the non-profit organization is charged with raising funds in the private sector to ensure the success of Atlanta's in-town revitalization along 22-miles of abandoned railroad tracks.
The BeltLine project will increase greenspace, improve transit, connect neighborhoods, foster livable communities, and fuel economic growth in the city for the next 25 years.
"The BeltLine will connect in-town neighborhoods with parks, transit and trails for commuters, bicyclists and pedestrians and improve the quality of life for present and future generations," said Friedman. "We will soon begin a $50 to $60 million dollar fundraising campaign."
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Sam Friedman
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No stranger to transforming unused railroad tracks into magnets for recreational activities, Friedman was the founding chairman for The PATH Foundation, which is developing a trail system for north Georgia. He currently actively serves the organization as chairman emeritus
The name “Belt Line” was coined before the Civil War for a loop of tracks that encircled Atlanta. Eventually, commerce to, from and through Atlanta began to depend more on trucking and highways than on trains and railroads and some tracks – including many portions of the BeltLine – were abandoned and largely forgotten.
The idea for revitalizing the BeltLine sprang from a proposal in 1999 by a Georgia Tech graduate student to link multiple city neighborhoods with a new transit system along the forgotten tracks.
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