The first residential tower at Centennial Yards has opened for tenants, more than a decade after the project’s origin as a parking-lot deal between the city and the Atlanta Falcons and years after the development nearly collapsed under its own weight.
The opening of The Mitchell — a single 19-story tower designed by Atlanta firm Goode Van Slyke Architects — marks the most visible sign yet that the long-stalled $5 billion, 50-acre redevelopment of The Gulch is finally moving.
What opened this week
The Mitchell, a single 19-story residential tower with 304 units, opened to residents this week. The building sits on Centennial Olympic Park Drive, directly across from Mercedes-Benz Stadium, and includes ground-floor retail. About 90% of units had already been pre-leased when move-ins began Tuesday.
“Opening the Mitchell, the first residential tower at Centennial Yards, is a significant step in transforming Downtown Atlanta into a thriving neighborhood. This community will bring new energy and life to downtown, offering a lifestyle that puts residents at the center of everything Atlanta has to offer.”
— Brian McGowan, President, Centennial Yards Company
A note on affordability: as part of the original development agreement, the developer pledged to make 20% of the project’s eventual residential units affordable. At The Mitchell, the developer opted out of that requirement by paying an $8 million fee to the city, a move that affordable-housing advocates criticized at the time but which was permitted under the agreement.
A long and winding road
Centennial Yards traces back to 2013, when the city signed a non-binding deal with the Falcons and developer CIM Group to redevelop the parking lots around the new stadium. That deal collapsed in 2017 after CIM walked away, and the project sat largely dormant for years.
It was revived in 2022 when a new developer — Centennial Yards Company, a partnership backed by private equity — acquired the development rights and unveiled an entirely new master plan. That plan has since gone through several revisions, most recently last winter, when the developer trimmed the total unit count to better match what the downtown rental market could absorb.
What’s coming next
The full master plan envisions:
- Seven residential towers totaling roughly 3,200 units
- A roughly 750-key hotel
- About 1 million square feet of office space
- A 250,000-square-foot retail and entertainment district
- Five acres of new public parks and plazas
- A new MARTA station connecting to the existing Vine City stop
Construction on the next two residential towers is scheduled to begin in the first quarter of 2026, with the developer aiming to deliver them in late 2027. The hotel is targeting a 2028 opening, in time for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which Atlanta is hosting at Mercedes-Benz Stadium next summer.
Why it matters
Centennial Yards is the largest single piece of a downtown real-estate puzzle that has been missing since the 1996 Olympics: a fully built-out district between the stadium and the existing convention and tourism core. For decades, the land was too tangled — split among the city, the state, the railroads, and various private owners — for any one developer to assemble.
That changed when the state agreed in 2022 to relocate its operations from the site, and the new developer used a combination of tax-allocation district financing, opportunity zone capital, and conventional construction debt to put the deal together.
“We are not out of the woods,” McGowan said. “We have five more towers to build. We have a hotel to finance. We have to figure out the office. But the hardest part — proving the first two could be built and leased — is behind us.”
Elena Vásquez covers city hall, transportation, and downtown development for WACN 21. Reach her at evasquez@wacn21.com.
