James F. Durrett, III
Executive Director
The Buckhead Community Improvement District

Jim Durrett is executive director of The Buckhead Community Improvement District (CID) – a public-private agency with taxation power – which works with federal, state and city government to plan, fund and implement public infrastructure and quality of life improvements in the Buckhead community. He has in-depth expertise in real estate development, land use and creating livable communities, and is a frequent speaker at local and national conferences and workshops.

 

Prior to heading up the Buckhead CID, Durrett was founding executive director of the Livable Communities Coalition, a not-for-profit organization formed in 2005 to promote smart growth development in the Atlanta region.  Prior to that, Durrett served for five years with the Urban Land Institute (ULI), an organization dedicated to land use and real estate development issues, as the founding executive director of ULI's Atlanta District Council. 

 

In addition, Durrett was with the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce as the vice president of Environmental Affairs, and was the senior vice president and chief operating officer of The Georgia Conservancy.  Durrett began his professional career as a geologist in the DeKalb County office of Golder Associates, an international geotechnical engineering consulting firm.

 

Durrett is actively involved in the community and currently serves on the following boards:  MARTA board of directors (which he currently chairs); Livable Communities Coalition board of trustees; Project Interconnections advisory board; and VSA Arts of Georgia board of directors.

 

From 1998 to 2005, Durrett was a member of the Georgia Environmental Advisory Council, appointed by the Governor to advise the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, the Georgia Environmental Protection Division and the Governor on environmental policy matters.  He was a member of the inaugural class of the Institute for Georgia Environmental Leadership and a participant in the Regional Leadership Institute.  He chaired the advisory committee for Georgia For a Lifetime, an initiative of the Georgia Council on Aging.  He also has served on numerous collaborative committees and task forces working on growth management, affordable housing and environmental issues in the state of Georgia.

 

Previous non-profit board experience includes Georgians for Passenger Rail; the Georgia Conservancy board of trustees; PEDS; the Hambidge Center board of trustees; and more. 

 

Durrett attended the Westminster Schools in Atlanta and earned a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Virginia and a master's degree in Geology from the University of Georgia.  He completed post-graduate work in hydrogeology at the University of Texas.  He is an Atlanta native and lives in DeKalb County with his wife, Pat.  They have two sons, James, a junior in college, and Ryan, a college freshman.