Nearly a century old, The Colonnade is for sale

Welcome to Atlanta Business Chronicle’s LinkedIn Weekly Edition! I'm Digital Editor Chris Fuhrmeister, bringing you the business news to keep you in the know. Here's a selection of our top stories this week.

One of Atlanta’s oldest restaurants has hit the market.

The Colonnade restaurant on Cheshire Bridge Road is for sale for $975,000, according to a listing from restaurant broker Steven Josovitz with The Shumacher Group.

The Colonnade first opened in 1927 at the corner of Lindbergh Drive and Piedmont Avenue, says the listing. It relocated to Cheshire Bridge in the 1960s.

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Georgia Aquarium CEO Brian Davis died unexpectedly this week. Davis is being remembered across the city for his visionary leadership. 

“He was a really supportive, caring individual,” said his longtime friend Frank Ski, an Atlanta radio personality and philanthropist. 

“He had a real calm sense to him,” Ski said. “He was one of those people who are soft spoken, but when they speak, everybody listens.”

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Delta's drama that was sparked by a Microsoft outage due to a faulty CrowdStrike software update has reached a new level. In a blistering Sunday letter to Delta’s legal counsel, CrowdStrike attorney Michael Carlinsky reprimanded the carrier for its sharp criticism of the company and its intent to pursue litigation.

Then Microsoft piled on. In a Tuesday letter to Delta's legal counsel, Microsoft attorney Mark Cheffo claimed that Delta turned down multiple offers to assist the Atlanta-based carrier for free as it struggled to return to normal operations.

Not to be outdone, a group of Delta customers filed a class-action lawsuit against the carrier for its handling of the mess.

Delta fired back to close out the week. In a Thursday letter to CrowdStrike attorney Michael Carlinsky, Delta attorney David Boies accused the company of shirking responsibility and minimizing the impacts of the "international disaster" caused by its faulty software update that crashed Windows-based systems in July. The technology issue brought flights to a halt, shutting down 38,000 of Delta's computers and disrupting travel plans for more than 1.3 million of the airline's customers, Boies said.

There's bound to be more from where all that came from.

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Peter “Bo” Rutledge, the dean of the University of Georgia School of Law, has joined Morris, Manning & Martin as senior counsel in the firm’s litigation practice. Rutledge will join the firm on a part-time basis while finishing out his term as a dean before transitioning to MMM full-time in summer 2025.

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A new, scaled-back vision has emerged for a Midtown corner that was once home to Atlanta’s oldest skate shop.

The former Skate Escape building near Piedmont Park will be rehabbed into a coffee shop called Old Sol. It’s the latest plan for the project called 12th & Everything, which was first announced for the property in 2022.

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One of Atlanta's fastest-growing companies is making a change at the top.

PrizePicks hired Mike Ybarra as CEO, the company announced Aug. 5. Ybarra, a gaming industry veteran and former Microsoft executive, replaces founder Adam Wexler, who is taking the position of executive chairman. The changes are effective immediately.

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The Coca-Cola Co. could be on the hook for $6 billion in back taxes and interest, following a U.S. Tax Court decision of a yearslong dispute between the beverage giant and the Internal Revenue Service.

The IRS had sought $3.3 billion of additional federal income tax from the Atlanta-based company for the years 2007 to 2009. The agency stated its intent in a September 2015 notice to reallocate more than $9 billion of income to Coke's parent company from foreign affiliates licensed to manufacture, distribute, sell, market and promote products in international markets.

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Atlanta officials are moving forward with a blight tax in hope of compelling negligent owners to clean up their properties.

At a Monday meeting, Atlanta City Council passed an ordinance allowing municipal court judges to order owners to pay more in taxes if they fail to clean up their properties. Those owners could be taxed up to 25 times the city’s standard rate.

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A new student housing tower could soar more than 20 stories behind Midtown’s historic Academy of Medicine. New renderings show off the design.

Chicago-based Core Spaces is pitching its second Midtown project, which would come a couple blocks from Technology Square. Atlanta Business Chronicle first reported the plans in April.

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NCR Voyix is selling its digital banking business for $2.45 billion cash to Dragon Buyer Inc., an affiliate of private equity fund Veritas Capital. The Atlanta-based fintech company is entitled to additional funds, up to $100 million in cash, if Veritas and its affiliates achieve a specific return on their investments through a future sale

NCR Voyix also confirmed 800 employees were impacted by the company's recent layoffs as part of its continued effort to cut costs.

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Chamblee Tap and Market, a 5,000-square-foot taproom and food hall, is now open in downtown Chamblee. It has 26 taps, with 20 dedicated to craft beers, five wine taps and a draft cocktail selection. This fall, there will be a variety of food stalls at the venue, including Sidecar Coffee, which will offer espresso-based drinks, cold brew, loose-leaf teas, bakery items, toasts and protein yogurt bowls.

That's all for this week's top stories. Thanks for reading Atlanta Business Chronicle! Questions? Comments? Concerns? News tips? Send them to cfuhrmeister@bizjournals.com.