Hawks owner: Gulch project could be ‘engine” for downtown Atlanta

Atlanta Hawks lead owner Tony Ressler said plans to redevelop downtown’s Gulch will transform the city, but the complex project requires not only billions of dollars in private funding, but also a substantial public investment to make it a reality.

Ressler, in his most expansive comments to date about the Gulch, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the Hawks and their development partners, CIM Group, are committed to bringing billions in new investment downtown.

But to make the project feasible, he said the developers need a substantial portion of three decades of expected sales taxes and property taxes created by the development to build the infrastructure necessary to serve the site…