For the third year running, AEC manned a booth at Miss Mary's Ice Cream Crankin'. The annual event was held in the scenic Roswell Town Square, just around the corner from the AEC office. Featuring live music, hundreds of homemade ice cream flavors, and sugar-hyped kids, the event raised roughly $50,000 for the Drake House--a local organization dedicated to helping families recover from financial crisis. 

This year, AEC cranked out a mix of time-tested and nontraditional flavors. President Chris Finke delivered the classic "Cookies-N-Cream", while Victoria Myrick's "Cake Batter" was a hit with all ages. In addition to AEC's unparalleled signage, Landscape Architect Bradley Riffel whipped up "Blueberry Cobbler": a creamy mix of hand-picked blueberries and crunchy pastry bits. Keeping the team cutting edge, Eric Turner and his wife churned up a matcha-packed "Green Tea" ice cream. Sadly, Mark Van de Water's chocolate chip concoctions did not make an appearance as they have the previous two years.

Unlike in 2014, where we took home the prize for Best Chocolate (with the aptly named "Chocolate, Chocolate, Chocolate"), AEC left empty-handed this year. Now, if we can get our ice cream crankin' on level with our engineering, we'll sweep the 2017 awards.

Construction has begun on the new Mountain Walk mixed use development in Cobb County.  The project includes 54 townhomes, 8,000 square feet of office and AEC was able to work around and greatly enhance the existing Mountain Biscuits Restaurant.

The initial zoning plan showed the existing restaurant to be removed, but after gaining the input from the surrounding residents it became clear that all efforts needed to be made to preserve Mountain Biscuit.  The developer, Cornerstone Associates, and AEC worked closely with surrounding residents, the Cobb County Staff and Cobb Commissioner JoAnn Birrell to rework the design to preserve the existing Mountain Biscuits Restaurant.

In addition to preserving the restaurant, the design team was able to enhance the access by introducing a dedicated left turn lane, adding additional asphalt parking for the restaurant and enhancing the landscape along the frontage of Old Highway 41.  So the next time you are in the area of Historic Kennesaw Mountain, stop in and have one of the best meals in Cobb County!

Miss Mary's Ice Cream Crankin' is a creative, delicious event with a great cause.  The Drake House is an organization empowering homeless mothers and children in the community, founded in 2004 by Mary Drake.  In honor of “Miss Mary” and her love for ice cream, the Crankin’ event raises tens of thousands of dollars each year for the crisis center.  

The 11th annual home-made ice cream social on August 30th was no different – the Roswell Square was filled with smiling (and oftentimes messy) faces.  The morning rain cleared just in time for the event, making the weather very mild for August – great for the patrons AND the ice cream!  AEC’s home-made ice cream flavors included “Cake Batter”, “Rocky Road”, “Coffee Chocolate Chip”, and “Choco-Late”.  If you missed the fun this year, be sure to join AEC in 2016!

Congratulations to Atlanta Ronald McDonald House charities and Brasfield & Gorrie (general contractors), who recently celebrated the “Topping Off” milestone for a new Ronald McDonald House facility in Sandy Springs, Georgia.  The ceremony commemorates the completion of the concrete framework of the 31-bedroom three-story house, which will provide a home away from home for families of children being treated at hospitals in the Perimeter area.  AEC has worked with the nonprofit organization and Perkins + Will Architects to provide civil engineering and site design services for the project, which is expected to be available to families by early 2016.

Miss Mary's Ice Cream Crankin', to benefit The Drake House, was able to raise $48,000.  There were 3,185 ice cream eating attendees of all ages, 131 volunteers and 39 Teams/Organizations that served ice cream.   Typically each team serves from 4-10 flavors so there was plenty of great ice cream to have.  There are four categories of ice cream that were judged.  They were (winning flavors in brackets);  Vanilla based (Ugly Tie Dye by Morningstar Mini Storage), Chocolate based (Chocolate with Chocolate Chunks by our own Charles McMillan at AEC, Inc.), Fruit based (Key Lime Pie by Temple Kehillat Chaim, and Other (Oreo Cheesecake by National Charity League Gardenia Chapter.  A fun time was had by all.