About ADNA

Mission

The Atlanta Downtown Neighborhood Association exists to enhance the quality of life for Downtown residents, communicate issues that affect the quality of life for residents and contribute to improvements of the neighborhood.

The area covered by the Atlanta Downtown Neighborhood Association is, roughly speaking, the area of Downtown bounded in by the highways, minus a few areas already included by other organizations (Central Atlanta Neighbors, Centennial Place, Marietta Street Artery, etc.).

Programs & Activities

The Association enhances the quality of Downtown life through its numerous activities. From simply offering a chance for neighbors to meet one another to setting up meetings with City Council representatives and teaming up with other local organizations like Central Atlanta Progress/Atlanta Downtown Improvement District, ADNA is an organization based on communication coupled with a passion for life in Downtown Atlanta.

It communicates issues through the E-newsletter and website (weekly distribution). It contributes to neighborhood improvements by organizing park clean ups (weeding and gardening at urban parks), through advocacy (attending and voting at Neighborhood Planning Unit – M meetings, ensuring representation on committees for such things as live-ability code studies, new city ordinances, and organizing meetings with law enforcement entities).

History

While a few pioneers have lived in the Downtown area for years and years, the Atlanta Downtown Neighborhood Association started up around the time of the 1996 Olympics, when a critical mass of people first began to live into the area, settling into buildings like the William-Oliver, Muse's, and Metropolitan. At first meetings were just informal get-togethers on Saturday mornings at a coffee shop, but after a couple of years, "Fairlie Godmother" Cooper Holland stepped up and became ADNA's first president. Monthly meetings started up and as a new organization found a lot of support coming in from Atlanta City Hall as well as location businesses and organizations willing to host meetings or help up put on events like a Town Hall Meeting. ADNA got its first web site in 1999, at the same time began an email listserve. Beginning in 2000, new president Erich Starrett and Vice President Wendy Darling started to push ADNA to greater and greater prominence, coordinating bigger and better monthly meetings, sending out news to the neighborhood, acting on local issues, and putting the group on track to become a real 501c3 non-profit.

The great turning point for ADNA came in spring 2002, when ADNA members stepped up to organize the first-ever Downtown Neighborhood Festival, which drew on the enthusiasm and skill of Downtowners and also contributed to ADNA's first ever fundraiser. In 2002, the Atlanta Downtown Neighborhood Association, Inc. became a 501c3 non-profit organization.