Atlanta’s new downtown rising on the doorstep of the World Cup stadium
If you are new to downtown Atlanta, or haven’t visited in some time, you might be wondering what’s up with all the construction.
The city’s core is a hive of new development, unprecedented in its history. Some of it was spurred by the World Cup, aiming to beautify downtown and provide things for tourists ahead of eight matches to be held in Atlanta, with the first at noon Monday.
But a lot of the ongoing activity has a longer vision, aiming to reshape the look and feel of downtown for decades to come.
Atlanta’s symbol might be the rising phoenix, but it’s a long-running joke that the city’s official bird is the construction crane.
The most prominent efforts include the redevelopment of the Gulch called Centennial Yards, the remaking of century-old buildings in South Downtown, the revamp of the former CNN Center and the latest rebirth of Underground Atlanta.
Knowing that a lot of company is coming over, Atlanta has been paving streets, cleaning up the cobwebs and spiffing things up. About 300,000 unique World Cup visitors are expected.
MARTA also has been renovating its downtown hub station, Five Points, a project expected to be finished in 2029.
But four projects are furthest along and have phases of development open and serving World Cup patrons. These also stand above the rest for their potential impact, laying the groundwork for the next era of downtown.
Centennial Yards
Few developments are large enough to be compared to a minicity, but Centennial Yards is in a class of its own.
It’s a $5 billion redevelopment of the Gulch, a 50-acre tangle of rail lines and parking lots beneath Atlanta’s viaducts. It’s an undertaking that’s been a pipe dream in Atlanta for decades — until recently.
Los Angeles-based CIM Group struck a deal with the city in 2018 to turn the sunken slab of asphalt and concrete into high-rise apartments, hotels, offices and entertainment venues, all atop a new platform to connect to the surrounding city streets. The city approved an incentive package of up to $1.9 billion to help the redevelopment.
So far, hundreds of apartments, a hotel, an entertainment venue called Cosm and a fan gathering plaza have been delivered. Another hotel, a retail building and a music venue by Live Nation are under construction, but not finished ahead of the World Cup.
The multiphase project will take several more years to complete, but it’s captured momentum and is slated to become the new epicenter of downtown Atlanta — something akin to a Times Square for the city.
South Downtown
Less than a half-mile away, Atlanta’s largest collection of ancient buildings has stood mostly vacant for decades. But that is also changing.
A group of Atlanta technology investors led by David Cummings and Jon Birdsong own a portfolio of more than 50 century-old buildings that span 10 blocks near the Five Points MARTA station. They’ve spent recent years filling those buildings with restaurants and offices for startups.
About $140 million has been pumped into the area called South Downtown since late 2023. That work, which continued through early June, revamped the area’s streetscapes, sidewalks, building facades and created new green spaces.
During the six weeks in which Atlanta plays host to eight World Cup matches, South Downtown will have more than 15 brick-and-mortar tenants, areas for pop-up vendors, multiple buildings occupied by startup employees and 26 loft apartments nearly ready for tenants.
South Downtown also includes nearly 6 acres of parking lots primed for ground-up development, but later phases are still being designed.
The Center
One of the most-visited places in Atlanta over the decades is the CNN Center, but that hasn’t been the case the last few years.
Built as the Omni Complex in the early 1970s, it’s been a fixture of downtown. But when CNN departed in early 2024, its future was uncertain.
What followed was a $200 million-plus revamp by developer CP Group that transformed the struggling food court into a new food hall and gathering atrium. Renamed and stylized as “The CTR,” it reopened in early June, aiming to act as an air-conditioned respite for World Cup visitors.
The ground floor’s future seems clear, but questions linger about everything above it. The complex’s office towers are all empty, and it’s a challenging time to find companies willing to lease workspace that is past its prime.
CP Group is in the early stages of potentially converting some of that office space into a hotel and apartments, laying early seeds with city and county leaders to get their endorsement and financial incentives.
Underground Atlanta
The cycle of decline, pivot and rebirth continues at Underground Atlanta.
Taking up several city blocks, Underground Atlanta got its name as the city’s elevated viaducts effectively buried it beneath street level. Its journey involved stints as subterranean speakeasies, rowdy nightclubs and a festival marketplace targeting families before declining into near-abandonment in the mid-2010s.
In 2020, Shaneel Lalani bought the property and has been slowly and steadily injecting it with new life. He’s primarily focused on leasing its existing retail spaces, remaking it as a nightlife hub once again.
The property is about 70% leased and includes a half-dozen clubs and music venues, ranging from the Masquerade to MJQ Concourse.
Lalani previously aimed to have new construction underway ahead of the World Cup, but he said construction headwinds and financing challenges have stymied those efforts.
“We would love to go vertical, but it’s just very challenging to make the numbers work at this point,” he said in early June, adding that momentum from the World Cup could help kickstart those ambitions.