The Atlanta Braves announced the initial restaurants and a long-planned brewpub in the entertainment district next to the new Atlanta Braves ballpark in Cobb County.
The Braves and their development team announced the first wave of restaurants on Wednesday for the $400 million complex. The development also has a name: The Battery Atlanta. The name is in reference to a pitching staff or the pitcher and catcher on the field.
The first restaurants are: Antico Pizza, Cru Food and Wine Bar, Tomahawk Taproom featuring Fox Bros. Bar-B-Q, chef Ford Fry’s Superica restaurant and a new steak concept by chef Linton Hopkins.
The construction is about to begin on the mixed-use side of the development, said Braves Chairman Terry McGuirk.
“This place is about to become a bubbling cauldron of construction and building,” he said.
The restaurants are key to the Braves’ strategy of creating a 24-7, live, work and play environment around SunTrust Park not only during their 81 regular season games but on the days when the Braves aren’t playing.
The Braves previously announced a concert venue, Omni hotel and Comcast as the sole tenant of an office tower to be built on site.
But it’s the mix of retail and food that have been among the biggest unanswered questions of how the ball club and its development team would draw customers 365 days a year.
Retail anchors weren’t announced Wednesday.
“It’s vibrant, it’s full of life, it’s energetic,” said Braves marketing chief Derek Schiller. “It’ll be a destination for Atlanta and unlike anything in the South.”
Jeff Fuqua and partner Heather Correa of Fuqua Development, the retail partners involved in the project, have targeted chef-driven restaurants, bars, high-end women’s apparel companies and a grocery store. In February, Fuqua said higher-end retailers on par with J. Crew, Anthropologie and lululemon were to be expected. Fuqua is aiming for flagship stores for new entrants and retailers that have few shops in metro Atlanta.
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