The World Cup is coming to Atlanta, spurring a historic district’s rebirth

Indicators for Underground Atlanta are the very first thing subway riders see once they emerge from the east exit of the 5 Factors subway station onto a downtown Atlanta road.

The four-block space has a storied historical past. Initially a Reconstruction-era railroad hub, the realm morphed right into a industrial district within the Twenties when metropolis leaders constructed viaducts over the practice tracks and retailers opened on the second degree of the industrial buildings above the rail site visitors. Within the Nineteen Sixties, the decrease degree turned a nightlife vacation spot, and within the Nineteen Eighties, a shopping center. It served as a hub for the 1996 Olympic Video games, then struggled to draw patrons for a few years. Bought by native actual property developer Shaneel Lalani in 2020, the historic district is within the midst of one more transformation into an arts and leisure hub.

As Atlanta prepares to welcome guests to the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which will likely be held at Mercedes-Benz Stadium lower than a mile away, Lalani and metropolis leaders are making enhancements designed to welcome and information hundreds of thousands of worldwide guests by way of downtown, laying the muse for a civic infrastructure they hope will serve Atlanta lengthy after the soccer followers have returned residence.

“The town administration has been very centered on making preparations for lots extra worldwide vacationers and an inflow of visitors and guests, individuals who aren’t acquainted with downtown Atlanta,” stated Anne Michael Sustman, director of business blended use and adaptive reuse for Web page, an structure and engineering agency that Stantec acquired this 12 months.

Underground Atlanta commissioned Web page to organize for that inflow by finding out how one can enhance the house’s attraction as a walkable vacation spot with common wayfinding interventions and a reimagined streetscape, Sustman stated.

“There was an enormous push by the town to actually enhance the pedestrian expertise all through downtown Atlanta,” Sustman stated. The Underground Atlanta homeowners consider “long-term sustainability depends on a continuing presence of patrons for the companies there,” she stated. 

Catalyst for revitalization

Underground Atlanta’s retail areas had been principally vacant when Lalani purchased it, Sustman stated. The developer discovered artwork galleries and music venues to fill the areas underneath the road. “Now they’ve this extremely vibrant nightlife, with over 700 reveals a 12 months, however they realized that they wanted extra activation on the road degree,” she stated.

Web page’s design options streetscape and lighting enhancements, in addition to greenery, to make the realm really feel safer and extra accessible to folks throughout the day. Pedestrian pathways are broad sufficient for meals vans and emergency automobiles however are designed to forestall automobiles from driving right into a crowd of pedestrians at a excessive velocity, Sustman stated. The town has made two blocks of the primary thoroughfare, Higher Alabama Avenue, pedestrian-only and plans to take action for a portion of Pryor Avenue, which intersects it, as properly.

A number of buildings are being retrofitted to keep up the realm’s authenticity and “preserve it gritty,” stated Phuong Nguyen, Web page’s experiential graphic design director. “We wish small-business homeowners to have the ability to afford these areas, so we’re beginning with a lightweight contact that reuses areas — probably the most sustainable sort of constructing.”

On the intersection of Pryor and Higher Alabama, the Antebellum-era Macon & Western Railway constructing — most just lately a Foot Locker and a gallery house — is being tailored for reuse as a 7,000-square-foot “micro” meals corridor that may home native restaurant startups providing inexpensive lunch choices, Sustman stated.

Past welcoming vacationers, Sustman stated, the challenge’s core purpose is to help the town’s push to carry extra housing and residents downtown. Many Atlantans haven’t visited the downtown space since Atlanta hosted the 1996 Olympic Video games, she stated.

“It’s not simply the World Cup that’s creating that momentum and that catalyst — though it’s a extremely good excuse for the town to come back in and assist out in some methods,” she stated. “The town has an consciousness that we’re not simply on show for guests, however we’re on show for individuals who might actually be the catalyst for whole change and transformation and revitalization of our downtown.”