ATLANTA (Sept, 16, 2014) - Atlanta's commercial real estate industry doesn't get to see a lot of the legendary Tom Cousins these days, so it was quite nice to see him smiling on Facebook this week.
In this picture from the PGA Tour Championship by Coca-Cola at East Lake Golf Club, Cousins appears happy, content and comfortable in his red Coca-Cola tie. He's pictured with Elizabeth Jennings, a business systems analyst at Coca-Cola Refreshments, aka CCR, who volunteered at the big golf tournament last weekend.
Here's what fellow University of Delaware grad Elizabeth had to say about getting the opportunity to say hello to Cousins, 83, the man who developed several signature office towers in Atlanta (Bank of America Plaza, The Pinnacle, etc.).
"Hanging with Mr. Tom Cousins at hole 18 #legendary#eastlakegolfclub #eastlakefoundation#tourchampionship #fedexcup #PGATour #cocacola — at East Lake Golf Club."
While Cousins' handiwork is visible at corporate campuses, office park and trophy towers across the metro area and beyond, his work at East Lake likely is some of his best and probably most satisfying. You can read all about Cousins' crowning accomplishment in this story from The New York Times.
As for Cousins, he still has about a dozen years ahead of him in the real estate industry - at least according to what he told me in 1997. We sure hope so.
"I promised my wife that when I was 95 I was going to absolutely quit working full time," he said, trying unsuccessfully to hold back laughter. Really, though, he said he'll hang it up "when it ceases to be fun."
"I tell college kids, `Get you a job you like. The money will take of itself,' " he said. "I can think of very few days in my working life that I haven't looked forward to going to work."
Cousins said he could have afforded to quit a long time ago and play golf, "but I enjoy it. I guess [I'll quit] when these youngsters (pointing to former Cousins President Dan DuPree) kick me out.
"Other than that, I'm having fun."
Here's a tease of The New York Times article on East Lake:
A Rebuilt Golf Course Renews a Neighborhood
ATLANTA — When Tom Cousins, an Atlanta commercial real estate mogul, first floated his radical ideas to build a mixed-income housing community, using golf — of all things — as a cornerstone to help resurrect the decaying, crime-ridden neighborhood of East Lake, most of his colleagues and friends — even the mayor of Atlanta — said the same thing.
“They told me I was crazy,” Cousins said last week, smiling as he sat on the porch of a home across the street from East Lake Golf Club, where 30 of the world’s best golfers are competing for a $7 million purse in the Tour Championship, the last of four events in the playoffs for the FedEx Cup.
Crazy was not the worst word Cousins heard to describe him and his plan to improve a neighborhood that was one of the worst crime zones in the country. He was opposed by many of the people he sought to help and by many government agencies.
“I wasn’t so sure about him,” said Eva Davis, a resident of the East Lake Meadows housing project since the 1970s. “We had heard so many promises before from other rich people who said they’d change things and never did. Why should we trust this one? He had to prove himself.”
Cousins, whose company had built much of the skyline of Atlanta, and who had been instrumental in bringing the N.B.A. and N.H.L. to the city, was not easily dissuaded.
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