Expert Bio

Brian Leary is a Managing Director with Jacoby Development – an Atlanta-based and national developer of corporate, mixed-use and retail projects. From 2009 to 2012, Brian was President & CEO of Atlanta BeltLine, Inc. ‐ the organization planning and executing the implementation of the BeltLine, one of the largest, most wide-ranging urban redevelopment projects currently underway in the United States. The Atlanta BeltLine is a $3+ billion project that will shape the way Atlanta grows over the next 25 years and beyond. When complete, it will provide a network of public parks, multi-use trails, transit, public art and thousands of units of affordable housing along a historic 22-mile railroad corridor circling downtown Atlanta, connecting 45 neighborhoods directly to each other. Prior to leading the BeltLine team, Brian oversaw the design and development of Atlantic Station – the largest urban brownfield redevelopment in the nation at the time and its 13.5M square foot master plan for Jacoby Development and AIG Global Real Estate. In 1998, he began developing the master plan into a National model for Smart Growth and new urbanism and successfully negotiated with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for Atlantic Station, and the new multi-modal 17th Street bridge, to become the first project of its kind in the United States and led a national coalition to create a $2 billion alternative energy and energy efficiency program with the U.S. Treasury and EPA.