Inside
Dunwoody Reporter
Brookhaven Cherry Blossom Festival
Save it or not
Debate over Brook Run theater COMMUNITY 2
The ‘Wright’ stuff
www.ReporterNewspapers.net
MARCH 20 — APRIL 2, 2015 • VOL. 6 — NO. 6
Sandwich shop feeds generations PERIMETER BUSINESS 9-14
Pretty in pink
A SPECIAL SECTION PAGES 15-18
Convention bureau plans to ditch city’s asterisk logo BY ELLEN ELDRIDGE
elleneldridge@reporternewspapers.net
PHIL MOSIER
Catherine Hightower, 9, left, holds her sister Tessa, 1, while friend Ella Richards, 9, “dyes” teacher Marian Lamson’s hair during the Kingsley Charter Elementary School’s Spring Fling on March 7. Attendees enjoyed food, face painting and a variety of games. See additional photos on page 6.
Building community at the corner bus stop BY ELLEN ELDRIDGE
elleneldridge@reporternewspapers.net
In the North Springs neighborhood, a corner lot welcomes children with a tire swing. After the bus takes the kids to school, the parents who meet there hang around and plan events such as Easter egg hunts and Halloween parades. Both adults and kids love hanging out at the “bus stop house,” Tracy Ellet says. Ellet said she knew the owners of the North Springs “bus stop house” when she and her husband started looking to move out of the Georgetown area of Dunwoody and into a bigger house. Ellet’s daughter went to pre-school with a girl living in the corner house. “I knew she’d have an automatic friend,” Ellet said about choosing to move to North Springs. Keeping her children connected to their playgroup friends was a priority when the family was moving, she said. “Our kids have friends that are six days apart [in age]; they’ve grown up together,” Ellet said. City Councilwoman Lynn Deutsch moved to North
Springs in 1992, just after her first child was born, because the neighborhood is beautiful and heavily treed, she said. In addition, it offered easy access to I-285, Perimeter Center and MARTA. “North Spring’s community is terrific,” Deutsch said. “I can’t imagine there is a neighborhood with better neighbors. We have a really active Women’s Club that puts on great programs, welcomes new neighbors and Where supports families with new babies.” You Emily Ceo, who grew up in West Virginia, Live said she and her family moved just a few miles from Chamblee to North Springs in 2004. Like Ellet’s family, Ceo wanted a bigger home without breaking ties to the friends they’d made through the Women’s Club. “I met my husband at college in West Virginia,” Ceo said, adding that they put a West Virginia University flag up outside the home when they moved into North Springs. SEE BROWNIES, PAGE 5
Dunwoody’s Conventions and Visitors Bureau is losing its asterisk. The bureau is adopting a new logo, eliminating the asterisk-marked design similar to the ones used by the city and the Chamber of Commerce. A new logo – a lower case letter “d” composed of blue dots – is part of the CVBD’s new marketing plans, Executive Director Katie Bishop said. The main mission of the CVBD is “to tell the story of Dunwoody for visitors and meetings,” Bishop said. “We have such a different mission and audience than the chamber or city because we’re dealing with people who may not have ever heard of Dunwoody,” she said. “We’re talking to people outside the community.” In 2010, the city and CVBD pitched in $105,000 to hire a marketing firm that created three logos intended to give a unified look and feel to the city, CVBD and Chamber of Commerce. But not everyone liked the asterisks that were part of that logo. And the original tagline, “Smart People, Smart Place,” was the same phrase used by a city in Texas, so Dunwoody switched to “Smart People, Smart City.” Bob Mullen, director of communications for the city, said the choice to create a new logo and brand for the CVBD came from Bishop and the CVBD’s board of directors. “I feel the new logo creates a vibrancy and energy specific to their mission,” Mullen said. But the city has no plans to change its logo any time soon, Mullen said. “The goal and mission of the CVBD is SEE CONVENTION, PAGE 4
The Conventions and Visitors Bureau new logo.