South Downtown green, an atrium at CNN’s old home debut ahead of World Cup
A pair of ribbon-cutting events Wednesday aimed to show downtown Atlanta’s evolution happening in real-time just before the city reintroduces itself on the global stage.
City and state leaders gathered in the morning to christen new green space in Atlanta’s largest cluster of century-old buildings, an area overlooked for decades. And in the afternoon, they became the first people to reenter a shuttered icon that is entering its third era as a downtown centerpiece.
The two projects — the redevelopment of South Downtown and “The Center,” the revamp of the former CNN Center — highlight downtown’s rapid change as the World Cup prepares to come to the city.
“All these projects together are going to change the downtown that you know today,” Eloisa Klementich, head of Invest Atlanta, the city’s economic development arm, told a crowd at The Center’s unveiling. “Downtown, if you think of a 24-hour city, is going to look completely different that what it is today.”
The Center, stylized as “The CTR,” is a project helmed by developer CP Group, which is poised to debut a new atrium and food hall in June. It’s a redo of the food court that acted as the primary gathering spot during its time as the CNN Center and before that as the Omni International Complex.
The Wednesday unveiling coincided with the complex’s 50th anniversary, and the pageantry acted as a remembrance for two Atlanta titans who helped etch the building into city legend — Tom Cousins and Ted Turner, both of whom died within the past year.
“Nearly every time you look at the downtown skyline, you’re looking at something Tom had a hand in,” Chris Eachus, founding partner at CP Group, said. “We are grateful for the foundation he laid here.”
“But for most of Atlanta, this building has one name and one story,” he continued. “In 1987, Ted Turner walked these halls and turned it into a window on the world.”
A couple of blocks away was the ribbon-cutting for the first dedicated green space to open part of Atlanta Ventures’ transformation of 10 blocks of Downtown Atlanta. Gov. Brian Kemp and first lady Marty Kemp were in attendance, as well as Mayor Andre Dickens and outgoing Central Atlanta Progress President and CEO A.J. Robinson. Many of Kemp’s remarks circled around the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
“Throughout this summer and long after, people will gather where giants of our past built the city that we know and love today out of the ashes of what came before,” Kemp said during his remarks. “That’s really what this city and what this project is all about: second chances, creating something new out of what came before and building on the past to form a better future with new opportunities for all.”
Located on Broad Street, the space, dubbed Founders Green, includes a stage, seating areas and room for outdoor movie nights, concerts and viewing parties. It replaces a paid parking lot, marking the first time in 70 years it has not been home to cars.
The park is expected to open by June 1, said April Stammel, who leads up leasing and community engagement for the South Downtown project. Atlanta Ventures just secured a watch permit for the FIFA matches, so it will be part of the official watch parties happening across the city. The site is part of Atlanta’s first open container neighborhood, which went into effect in April.
Site work began last fall, and progress was slowed by an usually rainy winter and significant excavation.
Underneath the asphalt were traces of earlier buildings and infrastructure, and the usual debris of bottlecaps and glass from the 1940s. The team saved a sign they uncovered from a company that previously ran a “pigeonhole parking” operation on the lot in the 1940s, which used an elevator to raise a car and slide it into a space. The sign has been repurposed to point toward the park.
Founders Green is not the last green space Atlanta Ventures will add to their portfolio. They’re planning on adding a green walkway between Peachtree and Broad streets near their planned residential building. Stammel calls it “The Ruins” because it will run between late 1800s and 1900s brick walls. As they continue to repurpose their lots, they’re intending to add more pocket parks and open spaces to compliment the historic structures and ground-up buildings.
Both projects join Centennial Yards, the $5 billion redevelopment of a tangle of rail lines and parking lots known as the Gulch, at making strides before the World Cup matches begin. Multiple hotels, apartment buildings and an immersive dome called Cosm are under construction, creating a new “minicity” between South Downtown and The Center.
The Center is also starting early preparations to pursue converting two of the complex’s empty office towers into a hotel and apartments, which will likely involve requests for city-backed financing and incentives. CP Group has invested more than $200 million into the project already, and it’s unclear what incentives they will pursue.
On Thursday, the Downtown Development Authority within Invest Atlanta, will consider issuing a loan to finance up to $60 million in water and energy improvements at The Center. The capital provider is Peachtree Group Capital, it has a 30-year year term and is anticipated to lead to nearly $3.5 million in annual energy and water cost savings while also eliminating CO2 emissions.
Those efforts will only accelerate after the summer’s festivities, which Eaches described as “a wave that will last long after the World Cup leaves Atlanta.”
About the Authors
Savannah Sicurella is an entertainment business reporter with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Zachary Hansen, a Georgia native, covers economic development and commercial real estate for the AJC. He's been with the newspaper since 2018 and enjoys diving into complex stories that affect people's lives.
