Athens, Ga. – The University of Georgia College of Environment and Design will host a lecture by Paul Morris, president and CEO of Atlanta BeltLine Inc. on March 4 at 5 p.m. in Auditorium 123 of the Jackson Street Building, which is located at 285 South Jackson St. This event is free and open to the public.

The Atlanta BeltLine is a comprehensive transportation and economic development effort in Atlanta. It is a sustainable redevelopment project that will provide a network of public parks, multi-use trails and transit along a historic 22-mile railroad corridor circling downtown and connecting many neighborhoods directly to each other. The BeltLine is an ongoing project with four trail segments and four new or renovated parks currently open to the public. Work on the project will occur in phases over the next two decades.

Morris joined Atlanta BeltLine in July as president and CEO. Trained as a landscape architect and urban planner, Morris has spent his 30-year career in strategic consulting and executive management roles focusing on transportation, urban redevelopment, natural resource management, public parks and the development of corporate and institutional facilities throughout North America, Europe and Asia.

He has assisted communities across 25 states and 10 foreign countries, offering hands-on involvement and complex problem solving, political acumen and dispute resolution expertise in more than 400 programs and projects including infrastructure investment, regional growth management, natural resource restoration, brownfield redevelopment and world heritage site regeneration. Morris’ work history includes projects in cities such as Portland, Ore., Detroit, Washington, D.C. Vancouver, British Columbia, Edinburgh, Scotland and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

Morris has worked on projects including the World Trade Center Memorial in New York City, the Columbine High School Memorial in Colorado and the Oklahoma City National Memorial. He is a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects, where in 2003 he served as national president.

For more information on the Atlanta Beltline project, see www.beltline.org.

Public parking for the lecture, which is co-sponsored by the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, can be found in the adjacent North Campus parking deck.

The College of Environment and Design

The College of Environment and Design is home to one of the oldest and largest schools of landscape architecture in the U.S. and offers degrees in landscape architecture, historic preservation and environmental planning and design, as well as a certificate in environmental ethics. For more information on the college, see www.ced.uga.edu.