RICHARD W. PADGETT
Rick Padgett has been professionally engaged in development-related work for twenty-two years. From 1981 to 1989, he worked with the Atlanta-based Portman Companies, a developer of urban mixed-use projects (office, retail, hotel, parking and merchandise marts), where he focused primarily on financial feasibility, location and market analyses, project pre-development, and retail renovation projects. As Vice President for Development, Mr. Padgett directed the $20 million renovation of 200,000 square feet of retail within the Peachtree Center mixed-use complex, as well as participating in Peachtree Center’s $330 million ownership consolidation and refinancing.
From 1989 to 1999, he headed Richard Padgett & Associates, providing consulting services to a variety of private, non-profit and government clients. A major client from 1991-1994 was the Atlanta Economic Development Corporation, where Mr. Padgett directed several downtown Atlanta redevelopment efforts leading up to the city’s Olympic Games of 1996. From 1992-1994, he was President of the Atlanta Downtown Development Authority, where he directed the public-private partnership effort that successfully developed the $261 million, 1.6 million square-foot Sam Nunn Federal Center in the heart of the city’s downtown. As DDA President, he directed bond financing totaling $361 million in both taxable and tax-exempt bonds. He also initiated and coordinated the development programming and financial structuring of the Georgia State University School of Music, involving the assemblage and renovation of three central-city buildings that now house GSU’s Rialto Theater for the Performing Arts as well as classrooms and practice rooms for School of Music students and faculty.
Mr. Padgett also participated in 1996 as Economic Consultant in the preparation of Albany, Georgia’s Downtown Revitalization Master Plan. In 1997-1998, he functioned as the sole coordinator responsible for implementing the Master Plan, including organizing the private non-profit implementation agent for the City of Albany and Dougherty County – Albany Tomorrow, Inc. – and soliciting and selecting private development teams for the various redevelopment projects recommended in the Master Plan. He has remained involved in the Master Plan implementation since that time, and remains actively involved currently as a consultant to the private developer of a combined Hilton Garden Inn Hotel and regional conference center facility in Downtown Albany. To date, approximately $115 million in Albany Master Plan redevelopment projects has either been completed, is under construction, or is in design phase with construction financing committed.
In late 1999, Mr. Padgett joined one of his clients, Airis Corporation, the world’s largest private developer of on-airport facilities. As Division Manager for Major Projects, Mr. Padgett developed business opportunities, analyzed prospective projects and structured financing for qualified projects. At the beginning of 2002, Mr.Padgett became Vice President of Airis’ financing component, Paragon World Capital LLC, which acted as financial structuring agent for Airis and other clients. At Paragon, he participated in arranging a $400 million line of credit with Swedbank, Sweden’s largest landbank, for the development of on-airport facilities throughout the 19 airports owned by the Swedish Civil Aeronautics Administration (Luftfartsverket). Upon Airis’ sale – which included Paragon – to a Houston-based company, Mr. Padgett returned to private consulting in Atlanta rather than join the new owner of Airis/Paragon in Houston.
In his work with the Atlanta Economic Development Corporation and the Atlanta Downtown Development Authority, Mr. Padgett worked closely with Walt Huntley. Additionally since that time, he has worked with Mr. Huntley on a variety of community-redevelopment projects, primarily contributing analysis and recommendations regarding economic feasibility, development programming and financial structuring of commercial, residential, public facility and mixed-use projects.
Mr. Padgett, a native of Atlanta, has earned a Master of Business Administration from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration and is a graduate of Brown University. He lives with his wife in Atlanta, Georgia.