ATLANTA — The days of “The Gulch” seem to be numbered.
For years, the 50-acre plot of land that sits between Mercedes-Benz Stadium and State Farm Arena was true to its name: a sunken space home to pavement and rail lines but little else.
“This is a big day for us, but a lot more to come,” Brian McGowan, president of the Centennial Yards company, said.
Thursday, Centennial Yards held a “steel rising” ceremony to celebrate the first steel going into the building of the Cosm.
“It’s super exciting because it’s our first big tenant,” McGowan said.
The Cosm is a three-story, 70,000 square foot immersive entertainment center.
The facility includes a massive dome that gives patrons a front row seat at the largest sporting events, with a screen that has similarities to Las Vegas’s “Sphere.”
The Atlanta location will be the third ever Cosm behind Dallas and Los Angeles.
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Jeb Terry said they picked Atlanta because of the location, and they hope to open up before the World Cup arrives in town next year.
“I’d argue there’s not another site like this in the world with the proximity of buildings around here,” Terry said. “At the end of the day, you look at this on a global scale, the world’s attention is here. You got the World Cup coming, Super Bowls coming, college championships.”
The Centennial Yards project calls for more than $5 billion to revitalize the 50-acre site.
The end plan calls for a multi-use district, anchored by a 5,000+ seat entertainment facility.
Earlier this week, the company behind the redevelopment announced that Live Nation would lease the facility.
“If you’ve been in Atlanta as long as I have, which is all my life, you know what the Gulch is. It’s a big hole in the ground that, you know, is a series of parking lots, et cetera,” Andrea Worthy, Economic development director for the city of Smyrna, said.
Worthy said projects like these can have a “halo effect” for the regions surrounding the development. She said a similar benefit happened after the Braves built The Battery in Cobb County.
However, these projects take a lot of work.
“There are many moving parts, many partners involved. You’ve got to get the city involved in those types of things. It’s a really complicated process,” Worthy said.
The hope for developers is that soon the Gulch will be transformed into an entertainment and economic hub for downtown.
“So when those planes are flying over for big global events, it’s not gonna be a giant parking lot with cars in it. It’s gonna be this vibrant, mixed-use retail district where people can come and experience Atlanta, who we are, and our culture,” McGowan said.
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