The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rehearsal hall takes name from donor
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The rehearsal hall at the City Springs Performing Arts Center has a new name.
At its meeting on Tuesday, the Public Facilities Authority for Sandy Springs voted unanimously to approve a recommendation from the Sandy Springs Foundation, Inc. to name the hall after the wife of a Sandy Springs resident and donor.
The hall will now be known as “The Wendy-Joy Persons Rehearsal Hall” for at least the next 10 years, according to city documents. W. Ray Persons, Wendy-Joy’s husband, made a donation of $150,000 to the Sandy Springs Foundation, Inc. in November 2017.
In the agreement for the gift donation, Persons requested that the founda- tion consider a recommendation to the authority to name the rehearsal hall “in honor of ” his wife. The foundation accepted the donation and made its recommendation on Tuesday.
It says in documents signed by Persons that the author- ity has “sole discretion as to any naming of City Springs’ assets” and that even with a recommendation from the foundation, there was no guarantee that naming the hall after his wife would be approved.
The donation Persons made can be used for any purposes within the foun- dation’s mission. An irrevo- cable pledge, it will be paid in annual installments of $30,000 from 2018 through 2022. The donor can accelerate the payment at any time.
W. Ray Persons is a partner at King & Spalding law firm, focusing on complex litigation. Wendy-Joy Persons is an associate broker with Palmer House Properties. They met while studying at Ohio State University. Online property records for Fulton County show that they have lived in Sandy Springs since 2002.