The planned West Community Improvement District, which aims to create more than two-dozen traffic, beautification and saftey improvements along the Camp Creek Parkway corridor inched closer to formation Monday at a sign-up rally at the Marriott Atlanta Airport Gateway Hotel. Property owners representing $100 million in land in the Camp Creek area in College Park, East Point and South Fulton County signed up for the initiative, which is pushing to launch in June. CIDs are funded via a self-imposed tax that member businesses agree to pay. Those funds are deployed to increase the vitality of the…

Looking to boost customer traffic, improve traffic flow and other other initiatives, a group of businesses along the Camp Creek Parkway corridor are looking to form a Community Improvement District. The initiative, which would be called the Airport West Community Improvement District, aims to fund a number of transportation, safety and beautification projects. Community Improvement Districts, or CIDs, are funded via self-imposed taxes that member businesses agree to pay. Those funds are deployed to increase the vitality of the CID zone and other goals. Buckhead, for example, has a CID. As …

JuShawn Carter is only 17 years old, but the Cascade resident is focused on business. A senior at Benjamin E. Mays High School, Carter runs her own baking business, CakesbyFourteen. A member of the Youth Entrepreneurs Georgia program, Carter, along with Franchesca L. Thompson, a Youth Entrepreneurs Georgia teacher at North Atlanta High School, will be honored at the 25th Anniversary Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship Gala at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. Youth Entrepreneurs Georgia is a business program in metro Atlanta high schools that teaches students free-enterprise …

I'na Saulsbery likes to stand out. It's a trait that serves the Columbus, Ohio native well in her line of business as an event planner. Saulsbery is the owner of the Starfire Group, an event planning company based in the greater Cascade area. That follows her eight years as as managing and marketing events for Justin's, the now-closed restaurant owned by entertainment mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs. In launching her own firm, Saulsbery, who once sported a red Mohawk, took the next step toward leaving what was at the time, a secure job and position with benefits for the initial uncertainty of going …

Being active in Meika Louis-Pierre's line of work is tantamount to success. As a personal trainer and owner of the Fit Neighborhood gym and exercise studio, on Cascade Road, getting clients activity rates up for them to achieve and maintain healthy lifestyles is central to her business. But it also underscores a life motto that she has: "Everyone who is successful in life is a doer." It's a philosophy that led her to open the gym some three years ago, after working as a trainer in Midtown. She wanted to open the gym in Southwest Atlanta because there was a need. Some folks tried to disuade …

Atlanta-based Capitol City Bank & Trust Co. said Monday that it entered into a strategic alliance with the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Co., to allow each to sell the other's services. NCM, founded in 1898, in Durham, N.C., is one of the oldest black-owned insurance companies in the country. Capitol City, founded in 1994, serves primarily black customers in Southwest Atlanta, and other metropolitan areas throughout Georgia. This strategic alliance allows both to pursue major contracts with municipalities and major corporations throughout the Southeast and provides both with the …

If the Civil Rights Movement is the story of Atlanta, then gospel music may very well be its soundtrack. The movement charted and changed the course of American history and the music of that time, particularly gospel, served as the spiritual salve for a generation. That connection remains strong, even through today, says Teresa Hairston, founder of the Gospel Heritage Foundation. The foundation, which Hairston founded in 1996, held its 17th annual Praise & Worship Conference, this past weekend in Atlanta to celebrate the genre's legacy and importance as a vehicle for education. Despite music …