Kwanza Hall Named Managing Partner/CEO Of Chattahoochee Trails
Former Congressman and Atlanta City Councilman Kwanza Hall has been named managing partner and CEO of Chattahoochee Trails, a new organization intended to provide water reclamation and recreational opportunities along Atlanta’s underutilized Chattahoochee Riverfront.
“Atlanta has never had a riverfront – although we have a river,” says Hall. “Cities around the world have transformed their riverfronts into historic attractions for visitors and residents, and we can do the same here in Atlanta through the innovative use of our blue and green infrastructure.
“I’ve always loved innovation and technology,” says Hall, who attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is a graduate of Benjamin E. Mays High School. “Nature and ecology have always been close to my heart, so this initiative is a natural progression from elective office to public service as a private citizen on behalf of the city I love.”
Plans for Chattahoochee Trails include a water hub to provide for water reclamation and reuse for industrial users along the riverfront, as well as a system of parks and trails along the river. Major environmental groups have endorsed plans for the water hub and connected greenspace, including the Trust for Public Land, which acknowledged the Chattahoochee Trails site as “particularly important, because it sits at the confluence of Proctor Creek and the Chattahoochee – which also is the terminus of what will be the Proctor Creek Trail (connecting to MARTA’s Bankhead Station and the Atlanta BeltLine).” The environmental group also said the project will “help connect northwest Atlanta, including low-resource communities, to the river. Too many Atlanta residents, especially people of color, lack easy access to the Chattahoochee. Creating new public space along the river within Atlanta will help address this inequity.”
Hall, the son of the late Leon W. Hall, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s
youngest lieutenant, has dedicated his life to public service in a variety of capacities. For 15 years, Hall served on Atlanta City Council and on the Atlanta School Board. As Councilman for District 2, Hall has been recognized for leadership in many areas, including economic inclusion, affordable housing, justice reform, workforce development, urban design and arts and culture. In 2013, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation recognized his initiative to expand opportunities to families in an Atlanta neighborhood with the highest concentration of poverty in the southeastern United States.
Prior to his election to the Atlanta City Council, Hall served as vice chair of the Audit Committee for the Atlanta Board of Education and on the board of the Atlanta Development Authority. Hall has been a member of the City of Atlanta Pension Board and is a former chair of the Atlanta City Council’s International Relations Committee.
Hall has served as a fellow of the German Marshall Fund and a number of U.S. State Department programs. He has also served on numerous nonprofit boards, including the World Affairs Council, Leadership Atlanta, the National Center for Civil and Human Rights and Tenet Healthcare/Atlanta Medical Center.
Previously, Hall worked in Fulton County government leading the New Technology Division and as Vice President of Technology for GoodWorks International, a public affairs consulting firm co-chaired by Ambassador Andrew Young. He also worked as Director of Business Development for MACTEC Engineering and Consulting, Inc., and senior advisor to Maxwell Stamp.
Hall was appointed as a Senior Fellow of the Global Federation of Competitiveness Councils. In 2012, Georgia State University honored him with the Pioneer Award, its highest recognition for leadership promoting arts and culture in downtown Atlanta. In 2011, Atlanta’s Park Pride honored Hall for governmental leadership in parks and green space advocacy.
He was also voted by an independent media panel as one of the 100 Most Influential Atlantans. Atlanta’s American Institute of Architects chapter created the Kwanza Hall Award for civic leadership in architectural design. In 2009, Creative Loafing named Kwanza Atlanta’s “Best Local Political Figure.”
Most recently, Hall served as U.S. Representative for Georgia’s 5th district, completing the term of his mentor, the late Congressman John Lewis in the 116th Congress. This period has proven by many historians to be one of the most consequential in U.S. history. In the spirit of continuing the legacy of leadership and activism passed down from Ambassador
Andrew Young and Congressman Lewis, Hall introduced six pieces of legislation requesting $55 million for transit-oriented development on Atlanta’s Southside; co-sponsored 14 additional bills; advocated on the floor of Congress 18 times and voted on 25 separate occasions for more than $3 trillion in the combined COVID Relief, Omnibus and Military budgets. Hall accomplished all of this in only 33 days.
Hall said “I’m excited to bring all of my experience in government and the private sector to a project of this magnitude. I’m also very excited to work alongside our mayor, the Atlanta City Council, the state of Georgia and the environmental community to bring Chattahoochee Trails to fruition.”
###
About Post Author
