The Boisfeuillet Jones Atlanta Civic Center has been empty since 2014. This week, the architects working on its revival gave the clearest public picture yet of what its 19 acres might hold.
Project architects TVS and Atlanta-based developer Sophy Companies led an architects' roundtable hosted downtown by AIA Atlanta, updating a multi-phase plan to turn the Civic Center's buildings, plazas and adjacent acreage into a dense node of housing, retail and hotel uses, anchored by performing arts space. No specific timelines were offered.
The building is worth the attention. A New Formalist landmark designed by Harold Montague of Robert & Co., it opened in 1968 along the western edge of Old Fourth Ward and hosted the Metropolitan Opera, Theater of the Stars, the Atlanta Opera and, more recently, television productions including Steve Harvey's Family Feud.
A rendering circulated in the event's marketing materials turned out to be outdated - it showed one corner of the property as a sloped public lawn with a large viewing screen and rooftop cafe seating. TVS provided a more current depiction instead, showing preservation of the Performing Arts Center alongside a possible modern expansion facing Piedmont Avenue.
"This rendering represents a moment in our iterative design exploration, studying the preservation of the existing Civic Center and potential historically sensitive strategies for a future expansion to accommodate Performing Arts Center practice space," TVS principal Sal Lalani said.
The first phase aims to create what AIA Atlanta described as a high-density, mixed-income anchor balancing housing needs with retail and cultural space at the seam where Old Fourth Ward meets downtown. Getting there requires what the organization called close collaboration among rental assistance, low-income tax credits, soft funding and grant money - a layered financing package rather than a single source.
Atlanta Housing is partnering on the project with The Michaels Organization, Sophy Capital and Republic Properties Corporation. TVS is leading cultural concept design and planning, while SOM and Goode Van Slyke Architecture lead the broader master plan.
After more than a decade of design changes, scrapped plans and dashed expectations among nearby residents, the site has finally seen real construction since December. The first new building will hold 148 apartments for low-income seniors.
Original reporting by Josh Green for Urbanize Atlanta, published March 2026.