ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) – Tens of thousands of fans will crowd into the East Lake Golf Club this weekend for the Tour Championship, the final leg of the FedEx Cup, where the top PGA golfer of the year will be crowned.

Every fan that goes through the gates means added funding for the immediate community surrounding the golf course.

“Right now, we’re sitting on 48 million plus dollars raised for this community since 1998,” said Alex Urban, Executive Director of the Tour Championship.

The bulk of that investment has gone to the East Lake Foundation, a non-profit with the sole goal of revitalizing the East Lake neighborhood.

The East Lake Foundation has served as the community quarterback for Purpose Built Communities, whose mission started in East Lake but has since spread to 27 cities nationwide.

“What they all have in common is leaders who are in the neighborhood and beyond who stand up and say that we can and we must do better,” said Carol Naughton, CEO of Purpose Built Communities.

Purpose Built Communities was founded by Tom Cousins who also owns East Lake Golf Club.

Purpose Built Communities uses a model with four pillars to reshape communities: expanding mixed-income housing, improving access to community wellness, providing cradle-to-college education, and improving economic vitality.

Naughton said that Cousins quickly realized that golf could be used as an economic engine for the East Atlanta community.

Neighbors soon recognized the transformation as well.

“Actually they cleaned the arteries. You understand. They made it better. The golf course takes care of East Lake,” said Calvin Grant, who’s lived in East Lake for 58 years.

Grant said the change has brought a lot of needed improvements to his neighborhood.

“It used to be the drug hub,” said Grant, sitting on his porch along Hosea Williams Drive.

According to a recent study by the Urban Institute, more than $600 million has been pumped into the community since 1995.

The Urban Institute also found that crime within East Lake Meadows, a public housing complex, was 18 times greater than the national average, during the 80′s and early 90′s.

“The Meadow was known as [Little] Vietnam,” said Grant. “So it was a lot of crime, killing, breaking,” Grant remembered.

The East Lake Foundation, in partnership with the Atlanta Land Trust, broke ground on a new mixed-income affordable housing complex set to open its first phase in East Lake in Fall 2024.

The Urban Institute study also found that since 1995 Black residents in East Lake dropped by 24 percent, while White residents increased by 20 percent.

Grant, who is Black, said he doesn’t believe his Black neighbors were pushed out and benefited from economic development opportunities.

Naughton said they’re very conscientious to prioritize legacy residents as part of the East Lake future.

“You do that by creating really thoughtful housing strategy that doesn’t just let the market do what the market will do but creates different kinds of interventions that create the opportunity for deep affordability, more opportunities for homeownership for lower-income families,” Naughton explained.

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