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Braves’ Schiller-Plant duo gives 200 percent

Mike Plant and Derek Schiller have been joined at the hip with the Atlanta Braves for about 13 years. The Braves hired both men in November 2003, and their connection has grown stronger over the three years they’ve spent developing a new ballpark and mixed-use development.

Plant oversees the day-to-day construction schedule for both SunTrust Park and The Battery Atlanta, working with stadium architect Populous and American Builders, the construction team composed of national firms Mortenson Construction, Barton Malow and two local builders.

Mike Plant (left) and Derek Schiller, at SunTrust Park, oversee the development for the Braves.
Photo by: DON MURET / STAFF
He also works closely with Cobb County and state officials to keep the project on schedule in terms of debt financing, which Plant says includes the sharing of information on financial commitments with investors “to make sure the banks are comfortable getting their money back.”

Schiller’s role focuses more on the revenue, programming and development side of both projects. He sits in meetings with potential retailers for The Battery, extending from restaurants to fashion and traditional retail.

“We have retail partners that sell that space … and [those potential tenants] don’t want to just talk to the people that are minority partners,” Schiller said. “They want to look at the people that are the 85 percent partners, which is who we are, the Braves.”

Plant and Schiller’s roles with the new development are in addition to their full-time jobs as the Braves’ executives at Turner Field, the team’s home since 1997.

“Breaking it down, 50 percent of our time is spent on SunTrust Park, 50 percent of our time on The Battery and the other 100 percent on our day job,” Schiller joked.

“This is pushing the limits of what we’re doing,” he said. “The good news is we’ve worked with each other for long enough that we know each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and we have an ability to feed off each other, work well together and manage collectively.”

For The Battery Atlanta, Schiller was principally involved in negotiating the 15-year lease with Comcast on a 250,000-square-foot building that will serve as the company’s new Southeast headquarters.

Separately, Plant took the lead on pursuing the deal for a 250-room Omni Hotel. Together, they collectively negotiated the joint venture with Live Nation to build the Coca-Cola Roxy Theatre, a concert venue that will be able to fit 3,500 general-admission patrons.

Schiller is selling the assets for the Roxy, including sponsorships and premium spaces. The music hall is named after the original Roxy Theatre in downtown Atlanta, which was torn down in the early 1970s to build a Westin hotel.

Considering their demanding schedules, Schiller finds himself waking up in the middle of the night to send emails he may have forgotten to send during the workday. At the same time, he feels a renewed energy over shaping the Braves’ next 30 years.

“This has really invigorated me in my career in pro sports,” Schiller said. “This project bring us into something that up until two years ago was somewhat foreign to us, the world of real estate development. In some ways, we are becoming the experts.”

For Plant, the project “owns his life” but his family understands his key role in the new ballpark and surrounding development.

“I see them more at our games,” he said. “My son [Drew] is a Braves batboy. The good thing is someday we can laugh about finally getting it all done.”

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