Atlanta tourism boosters, gathered early Thursday morning for their monthly update on the health of the hospitality industry, were abuzz about the announcement a day earlier of a National Health Museum being built in the city.

Several huddled together trying to figure out whether anyone had details, such as where it would be built, how soon that would happen, any word on visitor expectations and how quickly the facility could be sold as Atlanta's next big thing.

"I think we are on the cusp of something really big," Mark Petitt, a member of the Atlanta Convention and Visitor Center board and president of public relations firm Creaxion, said of the museum.

Gov. Sonny Perdue on Wednesday said Atlanta had won the museum over cities like Washington, New York and Chicago. He said one of the reasons the city was chosen is because it's the home of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and medical schools such as Morehouse College and Emory University.

The facility will be somewhere around Centennial Olympic Park, which is becoming the center of the city's attractions. Early figures suggest the facility could cost as much as $250 million.

Acquiring property around the park might be expensive. David Marvin, president of Legacy Property, said land prices have increased sevenfold since he began snatching up land in the early 1990s when Centennial was a wasteland of warehouses.

For instance, Carell Family LLC, a family company started by the founder of Central Parking System, recently paid $19.9 million for 1.7 acres on Marietta Street across from Centennial Olympic Park. The site is now a parking lot.

"Property valuations is very site specific," Marvin said, adding that the area around Centennial is prized. Marvin is developer of the Embassy Suites, Centennial Park West and the Hilton Garden Inn across from the park as well as several restaurants along Marietta Street.

Part of the enthusiasm among boosters about the plan stems from excitement that the National Health Museum would help the city move closer to the critical mass it desires to make Atlanta a destination.

"I don't know what the magic number for that would be," said Dan Graveline, executive director of the Georgia World Congress Center, the fourth largest convention facility in the country. "I don't know if that is 10 to 15 or 20 attractions. But I like the diversity."

In addition to the health museum, the National Museum of Patriotism said last week it would move in the bottom floor of the Hilton Garden Inn across from the Georgia Aquarium this fall. A parcel of land near the aquarium also has been set aside for a civil rights museum, and sports officials have said they are interested in bringing the College Football Hall of Fame to downtown Atlanta.

"We've grown up," said Melinda Ennis-Roughton, executive director of Brand Atlanta, the group tasked with helping to create an image for the city. Ennis-Roughton is married to Bert Roughton Jr., one of four managing editors at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

"We've become the prom queen," she said. "The world is ready to dance with us."