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The Dunwoody City Council heard encouraging news about its business and non-profit sectors as it relates to economic recovery after the worldwide pandemic.
“2022 was a record year for Discover Dunwoody as it relates to overnight guests,” Ray Ezelle, the executive director of Discover Dunwoody, the city’s marketing organization, told the council during its Dec. 12 meeting. “The industry is back.”
Ezelle said occupancy rates through October of this year totaled 60 percent compared to 57.9 percent during the same time in 2019. In addition, room revenue was up about $4 million compared to year-to-date figures in 2019.
The goals that Discovery Dunwoody has identified for 2023 include striving to become a film industry destination and increasing group and weekday demand for hotel rooms. Ezelle said the organization’s website has been overhauled, and there will be an additional emphasis using social media for promotional purposes.
Next year, groups who have contracted for blocks of hotel rooms in 2023 are up significantly, Ezelle said, but individual room bookings have still not fully recovered.
“We don’t believe business travel will come back until people return to the office,” Ezelle said.
On the non-profit side, Dunwoody’s Parks and Recreation Director Brent Walker said the city’s organizations are “climbing out of a very dark hole” after the devastating effects associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced the temporary closure of many of the area’s parks, theatres and other entities.
“It’s been a different year than what we saw in 2020 and 2021,” Walker said. “Almost every program across the board is doing very well.”
The highlights Walker discussed included:
• Attendance at the Dunwoody Nature Center topped 10,000 visitors in 2022;
• Stage Door Theatre is offering more improvisational events and moving events out the building and into the community;
• Spruill Center for the Arts is also doing more community outreach, as well as beginning a classroom expansion at its Chamblee Dunwoody facility;
• Dunwoody Senior Baseball has increased participation in every category throughout the year.
In other news, the city council:
• Approved funding for storm water repairs for 4517 Dunwoody Club Drive, 5583 Glenrich Drive and 4965 Vernon Oaks Drive.
• Swore in a new police officer, Jared Bradley, who had previously been on the force from 2014-2020 and has now returned to the department;
• Deferred action until February regarding a zoning change that would allow for group homes to exist using a Special Land Use Permit;
• Heard about a public meeting at the proposed park on Vermack Road on Dec. 11. About 50- 65 people came to offer their input and tour the grounds. Walker said all public input will be considered while the parks’ plan is being developed.
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