Fair Trade

By Clare S. Richie

In the face of rising e-commerce, many of us still prefer local brick and mortar retail, especially when the products for sale are ethically produced and benefit women artisans who are under- or unemployed and lack other opportunities for income. Ten Thousand Villages Atlanta located on St. Charles Avenue in Virginia-Highland sells only fair trade items from the U.S. and around the world, each with its own story to tell.

“We have a multisensory experience in our store. We have beautiful textiles that can be felt. We have music. We have the scent of incense, soap, coffee and chocolate. You are transported to another place, where you can see the faces of the artisans and you can feel their products,” said manager Juliet White.

For holiday gift giving, check out their annual bag sale Saturday, Nov. 11. Everything you can fit in their shopping bag is 25 percent off.

“It’s really when we’ll have the most in stock, so it’s a great time to shop. We have a lot of stocking stuffers, hostess gifts, office gifts, small things under $10 and $20 that are unique to Atlanta,” White said.

This holiday season, Ten Thousand Villages Atlanta will carry more lines than ever. It will still feature old favorites like Creedmoor Candles, made by adults with developmental disabilities in North Carolina. You’ll also find food mixes from the Women’s Bean Project that helps chronically unemployed women in Denver – convicted felons, recovering addicts, domestic violence victims – rebuild their lives through work. Maybe you’ll pick up a felted ornament from Nepal or a religious gift for Christmas, Diwali or Hanukah.

Friends Karen Gross and Marg Lambert opened the store (originally as Window to the World, later teaming up with Ten Thousand Villages national network) on the principal of fair trade, ethical production and helping women across the globe.

“Two wives and mothers wanted to help wives and mothers. They looked at the challenges women were facing and they thought ‘we can do this – we have to do this.’ So they fundraised for three years and finally got enough seed money to open the store here in 1993 as a nonprofit,” White said.

It’s a nonprofit social enterprise that partners with independent small-scale artisan groups, co-ops and workshops. They pay mutually agreed upon prices to the artisans, ensure that artisans have safe and healthy places to work, and emphasize sustainable environmental practices in the materials and making of products.

Volunteers, who work an average of four to eight hours a month as a sales associate, unpacking orders, etc., are also critical to this effort.

“It takes 30 to 40 volunteers. We currently have

18. We need more always,” White urged.

Today, the store boasts products from more than 130 artisan groups in some 38 countries.

“In addition to Ten Thousand Villages products we have 28 other fair trade vendors, which has allowed us to expand into food and beverage products, clothing, children’s items, music books and more,” White said.

With the tremendous growth in fair trade, White chooses from about 40 fair trade producer catalogues, always considering what her customers want.

“If they want more sterling silver earrings, I will find more sterling silver earrings,” White said.

Ten Thousand Villages is located at 1056 St. Charles Ave. and they also have a booth at the Kudzu Antique Market in Decatur, daily from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Visit tenthousandvillages. com/atlanta or facebook.com/ AtlantaVillages.

A small wrecking ball – and glitter canons – signaled the start of work on a “reimagined” Colony Square in Midtown last month. The wrecking ball knocked out windows and took a chunk of facade out of Building 500 at the corner of 15th and Peachtree streets, which will be replaced by a six-story building with retail, restaurants, offices and FitLab, a “curated collection of boutique fitness operators.”

During the groundbreaking ceremony, North American Properties presented further insight into the Colony Square redevelopment plan that will encompass more than 40,000 square feet of open community gathering places; 143,000 square feet of entertainment, retail and fitness concepts, chef-driven restaurants and Main & Main, the 28,000-squarefoot food hall; and 172,000 square feet of new office space.

The first phase, opening July 4, 2018, the 50th anniversary of Colony Square’s original groundbreaking, will include street-level restaurants and retail wrapping the 100 building. The second phase, opening March 14, 2019, will feature street-level restaurants wrapping the 400 building. The third phase, opening Nov. 21, 2019, will include a luxury movie theater, Main & Main, modern office space and FitLab.

“Midtown is the future and there is no better place to talk about Midtown’s future than at Colony Square, an iconic reminder of Midtown’s past,” said managing partner for North American Properties Mark Toro. “Now that Midtown has grown up to be the most desirable urban experience in the Southeast, we are turning Colony Square inside out and creating an energized streetscape that will play host to entertaining the thousands of visitors and residents that cross the destination’s path daily.”

A rendering of the renovated Colony Square.

The Georgia Department of Economic Development released a promotional video in October as part of its bid to attract Amazon’s second headquarters campus. Called “Day One,” the video and the excitement around the bid for HQ2 – as it’s been dubbed by Amazon – has many of the hallmarks for Atlanta’s bid for the 1996 Summer Olympics.

In the video, state recruiter Brittany Holtzclaw delivers the state’s proposal to Amazon’s Seattle headquarters in a box emblazoned with “Georgia: #1 State For Business.” If HQ2 were to choose metro Atlanta or Georgia, it could mean a staggering $5 billion investment and 50,000 jobs. The state and city have also offered up more than

$1 billion in incentives and infrastructure improvements to sweeten the deal.

Banyan Street Capital has begun redevelopment of Peachtree Center in Downtown. The district’s three-story retail center and outdoor courtyard will be rebranded as The Hub. The courtyard will be redesigned to better connect with pedestrian traffic on Peachtree Street and function as a town square with space for events, a glass-enclosed staircase connecting directly to the retail center, new lighting, reflective pools with seating and art displayed throughout. The retail center, which will debut in spring 2019, will also see changes including removal of barriers that impede pedestrian flow, upgrades to entrances, canopies, finishes and furnishings. Along with the facelift, The Hub will feature a new line-up of restaurants, shops and entertainment.

Denver-based Kramer Real Estate Investments and its co-general partner H2 Capital recently acquired the W.D. Grant Building at 44 Broad Street in Downtown. The new owners have engaged real estate services firm JLL to lease, manage and restore the building, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Grant Building has substantial office space available, including large and small spaces and a 30,000-square-foot block on the top two floors.