The Georgia Department of Economic Development (GDEcD) announced this week that RYSE, a minority-owned digital media company, is renovating a historic school in Southwest Atlanta and starting a content studio there, as well as development incubator, to be called RYSE Creative Village.
The first phase of the project will bring some $10 million in investment and create approximately 85 jobs in Southwest Atlanta.
“Investments from innovative companies like RYSE Interactive highlight our state’s support for new business ventures in the rapidly evolving creative digital media and production space,” said Georgia Department of Economic Development Commissioner Pat Wilson. “The state’s creative industries are vital to our economy, and we couldn’t be happier to welcome this incubator of diverse talent to Georgia. I want to thank the Metro Atlanta Chamber and Georgia Power for their partnership in bringing another innovative company to the Atlanta area.”
The new property being developed is the historic Preston Arkwright Elementary, one of the schools included in the fight a few years with then-Mayor Kasim Reed, as he refused to turn over deeds to the Atlanta Public Schools system which they legally owned but in a bit of a quirk, the city still physically held the deeds. APS wanted the deeds so that it could sell properties it no longer needed or used very much, like Arkwright. Reed was demanding APS to require sold properties to be redeveloped into multifamily housing units. There was some wrangling and APS ultimately agreed to some form of Reed’s demands.
The deal is just the latest in a number of media and entertainment companies to expand in the Atlanta area over the last decade. The new studio will include a gaming center, with production spaces for film, music, photography and podcasting.
“Obviously, there is no shortage of large-scale studios in Georgia for major film and television productions, and there is plenty of production work taking place here in the state. These productions will always need access to talent, not to mention opportunities that exist in the digital and emerging media landscape. We see RYSE Creative Village as a resource for curating and cultivating local, diverse creatives – helping them get connected to some of the larger opportunities,” said Jay Jackson, founder of RYSE Interactive, Inc. “We envision RYSE Creative Village as being part of a much larger ecosystem of resources for local creatives, similar to what accelerator programs have done in fostering the development of tech start-up founders.”
In an interview in 2018 with VoyageATL, Jackson talked about his success in real estate and the health and beauty industries, and how this led to his establishing RYSE as a platform to sharing the stories of entrepreneurs, particularly for black and multicultural audiences. His company started out in Orlando, but moved to Atlanta in 2016 after seeing the growth and opportunity that existed here.
