Atlanta's long-festering urban gash, the Gulch, reborn as a thriving residential community with housing by the thousands? It's going to happen, according to Centennial Yards Company president Brian McGowan.
Forecasting growth for the 50-acre CIM Group megaproject and downtown Atlanta more broadly, McGowan told the Atlanta Business Chronicle in early 2024 that Centennial Yards is eventually going to build 4,000 apartments -- a figure he said "is going to transform downtown." His confidence wasn't just projection: the rapid lease-up of the project's first residential building, the 165-unit Centennial Yards South, had already proven real demand for living in South Downtown.
At the time, Centennial Yards' first ground-up new apartment tower -- alongside a 292-key hotel -- had begun vertical construction in the Gulch, on track to top out at 18 stories and deliver 304 new rentals. That tower would go on to break the skyline later the same year, a visible first step toward the 4,000-unit vision McGowan described.
The forecast landed alongside broader growth numbers for the region: the Atlanta Regional Commission projected the 21-county metro would swell to 7.9 million residents by 2050, an increase of 1.8 million over the 2020 Census baseline, driven by an expected 856,000 new jobs. If Centennial Yards delivers anywhere close to McGowan's number, downtown will be absorbing a meaningful share of that growth within blocks of Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
Original reporting by Josh Green for Urbanize Atlanta, published February 2024.
