The queue of contenders for the title The Next Atlantic Station continues to grow. And of course it takes lawyers to assemble the plans to make it happen.

The latest movement comes on behalf of the city of Hapeville, which formed its first tax-allocation district (TAD) with the assistance of Hunton & Williams partner Doug Selby. The TAD encompasses the former Ford plant, which Hapeville officials and Jacoby Development Inc. want to turn into a mixed-use development. McKenna Long & Aldridge partner Sharon Gay was Jacoby’s counsel.

The TAD will allow Hapeville and Jacoby to convert the 122-acre site into places to live, work and play. The Hapeville site could also include a new public transit station. MARTA has expressed an interest in placing a stop at the Hapeville Ford plant, and the state of Georgia’s long-simmering plans for a commuter rail line south to Griffin could include a stop at the Hapeville site.

In addition to the Hapeville Ford plant, some other sites that developers think could be converted to a large collection of residences, offices and stores include the former GM plant in Doraville; Fort McPherson in south Atlanta, which is being shuttered by the Department of Defense; and Executive Park on North Druid Hills Road in DeKalb County.

Atlantic Station, which was developed by Jacoby, was built on the site of an old steel plant in midtown Atlanta. Among Atlantic Station’s many amenities are IKEA, Target and Publix stores; hotel and condo towers; restaurants and a movie theatre; and office towers that house some of Atlanta’s biggest law firms, including Arnall Golden Gregory and Burr & Forman. A third office tower, 271 17^th Street, is scheduled to open this year, and law firms also populate its tenant list. Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice and labor and employment firm Ford & Harrison plan to move to the new building.

Just thinking out loud: While some of Atlanta’s most-prestigious law firms are keen on leasing space at Atlantic Station, would they lease space in Hapeville or Doraville? If big law firms aren’t interested in office space outside of Midtown, does that leave a big hole in potential tenants for the space?

The financial crisis has postponed, if not canceled altogether, many corporate deals, securities offerings and real estate development projects, economists and attorneys have said.

But a $134 million hotel development near the Georgia International Convention Center and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport was just ahead of the storm. The project broke ground on Sept. 12. Bank of America announced it was buying Merrill Lynch on Sept. 15 and Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy on the same day.

More than two years in the making, the project, led by Atlanta developer Grove Street Partners LLC, will add two Marriott-branded hotels to a 25-acre site. The hotels will anchor a 1 million-square-foot mixed-use development to be called Gateway Center. It will be the only stop on a new automated people mover between the airport’s baggage claim area and its new rental car facility.

Although the financing closed before the Wall Street maelstrom occurred, Sheley & Hall partner Raymond Sheley [right], lead counsel to Grove Street, said the transaction probably would have proceeded even if it had closed later—thanks to how the deal was structured.

He said financing will come from a combination of equity, bond revenue and debt. The group of debt lenders, led by U.S. Bancorp, won’t be required to fulfill its obligations until Grove Street spends all $51 million of the equity and bond proceeds—about nine months from now.

“The debt lenders said that the national economic turmoil would shake out before they will have to put in their own dollars,” Sheley said. “That lag will be our saving grace.”

The first of the two hotels, a 147-room Spring Hill Suites, is expected to open in February 2010. The second, a 403-room Marriott, should open by August 2010.

U.S. Bancorp never considered pulling out of the deal because of national economic conditions, said U.S. Bancorp’s lead counsel, Seyfarth Shaw partner Mark Block.

“U.S. Bancorp is a very conservative lender, and I think that, between the project developers and the other people backing it, they always felt very comfortable” with this deal, Block said.

One of the development’s financing elements will be proceeds from bonds backed by payments in lieu of taxes, also known as PILOT bonds. Since the site is owned by the city of College Park, and therefore exempt from tax, Grove Partners will make scheduled payments to the city instead of paying taxes.

The Grove Street project will be only the third in the state of Georgia to use PILOT bonds, Sheley said.

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Business for bankruptcy lawyers, at least in Alabama, is about to get a lot better.

The Jefferson County, Ala. county commission voted this week to hire Birmingham law firm Bradley Arant Rose & White to begin work on a possible Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing. The county is in danger of defaulting on $3.2 billion in sewer debt.

Jefferson County includes Birmingham, the largest city in Alabama, and the Vulcan statue [right], the largest cast-iron statute in the world.

If Jefferson County goes through with the filing, it would be the largest municipal bond default in U.S. history, according to Bloomberg News. It would top the Washington Public Power Supply System’s $2.25 billion default in 1983 of revenue bonds sold for nuclear plants.

Jefferson County would be forced to file for bankruptcy protection if it can’t reach an agreement with creditors over how to escape from $3 billion of bonds with rising interest rates. JPMorgan Chase & Co. is the county’s lead creditor. Other creditors would include Syncora Guarantee Re Ltd. and Financial Guaranty Insurance Co., Bloomberg said. Both are New York-based reinsurance companies.

The county’s problems were caused partly because of the worldwide credit crisis, which drove higher the interest rates on the county’s outstanding auction-rate debt.

Bradley Arant bankruptcy partner Patrick Darby is advising Jefferson County, The Birmingham News reported. Lawyers from Balch & Bingham, also of Birmingham, had been advising Jefferson County on its bond situation but are no longer representing the county, the paper said.

King & Spalding partner Woody Vaughan III was bond counsel to the Gwinnett County (Ga.) Water and Sewage Authority on a $190 million bond sale. Sutherland partner Matthew W. Nichols and associate Sarah Belcher Storey were disclosure counsel.

The Gwinnett water agency is selling the revenue bonds to finance upgrades to its water reclamation facilities, building a new drinking water pipeline and a reuse water pipeline to Lake Lanier [left]. Following the upgrades, most of Gwinnett’s treated wastewater will be returned to the Chattahoochee River and Lake Lanier. Gwinnett is Georgia's second-largest county by population and is the future home of the Atlanta Braves' AAA minor-league baseball team.

Webb Tanner Powell Mertz & Wilson partner William G. Tanner in Lawrenceville is outside counsel to the Gwinnett County Water and Sewage Authority. Andersen, Tate & Carr partner Michael L. Sullivan in Lawrenceville is chairman of the authority. Karen G. Thomas is the Gwinnett County Attorney.

Dan Kolber worked a deal that bridged the end of the old Grady Health System and the beginning of the new Grady Health System.

The Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz corporate partner was adviser to Goldman Sachs Bank USA on an extremely short-term $23 million loan it floated last month to Grady Health System, parent of Atlanta’s Grady Memorial Hospital. The loan was intended to let Grady make its required contribution to the Georgia Department of Community Health Indigent Care Trust Fund, which in turn triggered a return of the loan to Grady as well as additional federal matching dollars.

It was the first time that Goldman had provided financing to Grady, Kolber said.

“Goldman is interested in this market and in providing services to Grady,” he said. “They thought [this short-term loan] was a good chance for them to step up to the plate.”

The loan – which was repaid in full by Grady after only two weeks – also represented the final transaction of the Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority’s oversight of Grady, as well as the first transaction overseen by the new Grady Memorial Hospital Corp., Kolber said.

“Since it was the absolute last transaction of the old Grady board, that was one of the legal issues,” Kolber said. “Goldman could have insisted that there not be a change in the structure of the Grady board until the payment was completed. Some lawyers might have advised them not to do the deal, but we think Goldman was adequately protected. Nobody wanted to hold up the trigger.”

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After a long losing streak, the City of Atlanta’s BeltLine project got its second-straight dose of good news last week when Fulton County Superior Court Judge John J. Goger approved the city’s $120 million bond sale.

Hunton & Williams partner Douglass P. Selby is co-bond counsel to the city. The BeltLine is a proposed network of new parks, trolleys and bike paths encircling the city. It would be built on land that is now mostly abandoned railroad corridors.

The bond validation came a few weeks after the Georgia Legislature agreed to a ballot referendum this fall on whether to allow school boards to participate in certain bond sales. The Supreme Court of Georgia had struck down an earlier BeltLine bond sale, calling it unconstitutional because most of the money would go to the BeltLine, not schools. The BeltLine was one of several so-called tax-allocation district (TAD) financing projects affected by the ruling.

After the ruling, the city of Atlanta scrambled to compile a scaled-down package in which bonds would be backed only by City of Atlanta and Fulton County taxes, Selby said. Without the backing of Atlanta Public Schools taxes, the bond package was reduced to $120 million from $200 million.

If this fall’s ballot referendum is successful, the city of Atlanta plans to pursue additional bond sales which will be backed by school taxes, Selby said. With school board participation, the size of future BeltLine bond sales would increase dramatically. In Atlanta, as in most Georgia communities, up to half of all property taxes are levied by school districts.

However, the city has an additional hurdle to cross, even if the referendum is successful. The Legislature reserved the right to make changes to the underlying law, the Redevelopment Powers Law, if voters approve the referendum.

“It’s likely the Legislature would adopt some sort of enabling act to implement the powers that the voters approve,” Selby said.

The $120 million bond sale, slated for this fall, is the first of what’s expected to be multiple tranches, Selby said. The first series will be used to acquire land for parks, transit rights-of-way and other matters. The city has estimated the total cost to build the BeltLine could reach $1.7 billion over 25 years.

Howell & Associates attorney George L. Howell is also co-bond counsel to the city. Murray Barnes Finister partner Teresa P. Finister is counsel to Wachovia, the lead underwriters. The City of Atlanta attorney is Elizabeth B. Chandler.