The building that carried downtown Atlanta's most recognizable name for four decades has taken its first formal step toward becoming something else. According to a Special Administrative Permit application filed Friday, commercial real estate firm CP Group is moving ahead with the renovation of the 1.2-million-square-foot CNN Center, one of its trophy Atlanta properties.
CNN left the building earlier this year and stripped its branding on the way out, moving offices to Midtown's Techwood and ending a run that began when Ted Turner reshaped the 1976 Omni Complex into CNN Center in 1986. CP Group's plan is to turn the landmark, known for its soaring atrium, into a modernized hub of dining, retail, entertainment, and content creation under a stripped-down new name: The Center.
The permit application, filed by engineering firm Kimley-Horn with Atlanta's Department of City Planning, covers a first phase of exterior facade improvements at the north and south entries. Renderings show the low-slung concrete-and-glass entrances reworked with large digital panels, street-art murals, new signage, and outdoor seating. A social area called Hawks Plaza is planned for the southernmost entry, closest to State Farm Arena's main entrance, with a remade atrium and reimagined retail corridors leading toward the arenas, the Omni hotel, and the Georgia World Congress Center.
The program calls for 130,000 square feet of retail alongside 920,000 square feet of creative office and media production space, plus the recently renovated 1,067-key Omni hotel attached to the complex. CP Group has not said when any of it opens; the company has said the initial focus is activating the ground floor. The Boca Raton-based firm bought the complex from CNN parent AT&T three years ago in a sale-leaseback that ran through this year.
CBRE is handling office leasing for a building where no space had been available for 40 years. Marketing materials from retail advisors Healey Weatherholtz Properties argue Atlanta's retail landscape is “grossly underserved” by its existing 2.9 million square feet, and lean on the traffic numbers around the site: downtown logged 42.5 million non-employee visits in 2023, and State Farm Arena hosts more than 300 events a year, fourth in the nation by event count.
The timing is not incidental. Atlanta's first World Cup match was 665 days out when the permit was filed, and The Center sits across the street from Centennial Yards' entertainment district, with Atlanta Ventures' South Downtown portfolio just beyond. Just west, the Georgia World Congress Center Authority picked a development team in June, including Fuqua Development, to turn the 11-acre Home Depot Backyard — the old Georgia Dome site — into yet another entertainment district. Four adjacent redevelopments are now aiming at the same deadline.
Original reporting by Josh Green for Urbanize Atlanta, published August 2024.
