How David Wardell Helped Deploy a City-wide Monitoring Plan that has kept the Area Safer

August 23,2010

Downtown Atlanta is unique in the order of magnitude of daily population (200,000), number of properties and businesses (more than 17 million sq.ft.), entertainment and sporting special events and venues, conventioneers (5 million per year), the size of its government district and the associated activities (operations, advocacy and protests), and its critical infrastructure in such close proximity within the Downtown Improvement District's 220 blocks.

Atlanta is second only to Washington D.C. in number of federal employees. The City and County Headquarters complexes, along with the State Capitol and major offices are located within the Downtown's Government District, along with major federal facilities hosting more than 13,000 federal employees.

Downtown Atlanta has the fourth-largest convention center (Georgia World Congress Center with 2.1 million sq.ft. of exhibit space) in the country, but has the largest concentration of major special events venues clustered, including the Georgia Dome, Centennial Olympic Park and Philips Arena. Also included are the New World of Coke, the Georgia Aquarium and CNN. Downtown Atlanta draws hundreds of thousands daily for business, government, conventions, tourism and sporting events, resulting in the highest density of pedestrian traffic in the southeast on a daily basis. MORE