By John Fredericks / Staff and Maggie Lee / Staff

If you like drinking a beer while watching the Falcons play football on Sunday in Atlanta, you may have to toast Mark Burkhalter (R-Johns Creek) the next time you pop open your favorite brewskie during a home game.

The state House this week passed a bill that will let Atlanta and unincorporated Fulton County continue to levy a seven percent hotel-motel tax that helps fund necessary capital improvements deemed critical to the Georgia World Congress Center, like potential improvements to the Georgia Dome, which they own. Burkhalter's bill does not enact a new tax. Rather, it provides the one in place now -- due to expire in 2020 -- to be extended. The veteran legislator said its passage is important to keeping the Falcons in Atlanta, although he admitted there are no guarantees.

Burkhalter called the entire Georgia World Congress Center an "economic engine" like the port authority or the Atlanta airport and calculated it brings $2.4 billion in new dollars to Georgia annually.

And with the bonds for the 1992 Georgia Dome set to be paid off in 2015, it's time to enable more, he said. By a margin of 151-13, his House colleagues agreed.

The bill allows Fulton and its municipalities to re-enact the hotel-motel occupancy tax through 2050 and continue to funnel forty percent of that money toward building or maintaining any domed stadium that has an NFL tenant. 

Burkhalter maintained his bill was not a hardship for Atlanta or unincorporated Fulton residents. "This is essentially an import tax, funded by travelers and tourists who come to the city of Atlanta for its events and its culture, and then stay in the downtown hotels. It is transparent to Fulton residents, but critical for the GWCC to be able fund new projects that help lure new businesses, create new jobs, and inspire new tourism,” he said. “This gives us the flexibility we need to capitalize on key market opportunities as they arise," Burkhalter concluded.

NEW NORTH FULTON CITIES CAN OPT IN — BUT ONLY IF THEY SO CHOOSE

The final version of Burkhalter's bill provides the new North Fulton cities of Johns Creek, Milton and Sandy Springs with the ability to "opt-in" to the extended hotel-motel tax after 2020, but only if they explicitly choose to do. And it would have to be approved by local voters. In effect, his bill protected the northside cities from the levy after the current one expires, which was grandfathered into their city charters when they were originally created in 2006.

Atlanta will most certainly enact it, and the new cites will most likely not, Burkhalter predicted.

The extension would have to be approved by the Atlanta City Council, but it already has the endorsement of new Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed.

If the north Fulton cities don't participate, Burkhalter said it wouldn't make a financial difference to the overall big picture because they collect only "minimal funds."

Only part of the money goes to the Dome. The rest supports the Atlanta Convention and Tourist Bureau and the city's general fund. 

Both Roswell and Alpharetta levy their own hotel taxes, but reinvest all the money at home, so they don't help fund it anyway.

BLANK LIKES BURKHALTER'S BILL

"We need to have a first-class, world-class facility" for not just the Falcons, but the other sports, events and conventions that use the Dome, Burkhalter urged, while pointing out that the money could redo the Dome or build a new domed stadium. 

He said the Arthur Blank family, whose patriarch bought the Falcons with his fortune from co-founding Home Depot, "doesn't have an objection to the bill."

It's important to win over the Blanks, as they decide where the Falcons roost.

His bill isn't a guarantee that the Falcons will stay in Atlanta, but “we'll have the property and we'll have a line of credit to do what they need done,” said Burkhalter.

For that to happen, certain conditions would have to be met. The Falcons have to renew their agreement with GWCC and to stay on the GWCC campus, the current bonds on the Dome would need to be satisfied and the GWCC board would have to authorize the new deal.

"The current arrangement with the Falcons is unique," Burkhalter explained, "because they are a tenant. The GWCC owns the Dome." He said the bill gives the GWCC the tools they need to keep the Falcons downtown. "If Blank chooses to go the Dekalb County, for example, he wouldn’t be able to benefit from Fulton's hotel-motel levy for renovations, improvements, additional parking, or other improvements."

And he suggested it's a good deal for Georgia to essentially pay off a facility that belongs to the state. 

The Georgia World Congress Center complex includes the Dome, the convention center and Centennial Olympic Park. 

The bill is waiting for Senate committee action.

  
Burkhalter was on the short list to become the next head of the GWCC last winter, and was the first choice of several board members, sources say. In fact, he cited a preference for that job as his reason for declining the House Speaker's gavel after the ignominious exit of scandal-tainted Glenn Richardson. Burkhalter only warmed that seat for about a month before new House leadership was elected. However, he later renounced the GWCC job too, having since announced a major expansion of his real estate business in London in preparation for the 2012 Olympic games.