South Downtown has always been the part of the city center that investors circled but never quite committed to. The buildings were old. The streets were quiet after dark. The potential was obvious to anyone who walked the blocks between Five Points and the railroad gulch, but potential does not pay for renovations.
That changed when SoDo Atlanta LLC — led by entrepreneurs Jon Birdsong and David Cummings — assembled a portfolio of 53 buildings with six acres of parking across 10 South Downtown blocks. The properties had been acquired from Berlin-based Newport, which had held them through eight years of intermittent development and eventual foreclosure. Birdsong and Cummings saw what Newport had not executed on: a district of 19th-century brick buildings within walking distance of Mercedes-Benz Stadium, State Farm Arena, and the Gulch development site.
The Friedman Shoes Building
One building in the portfolio crystallizes the story. The Friedman Shoes building — a 37,000-square-foot structure built in 1892, one of the oldest standing buildings in downtown Atlanta — sold for $7.5 million. Its original life was as a Jewish social club, a precursor to the Standard Club. The Friedman family had operated a shoe store on the ground floor since 1929 and purchased the building outright in the late 1970s.
The business found its niche in the 1960s when the family discovered a demand for large shoe sizes among athletes. The catalyst was Billy Lothridge, a Georgia Tech quarterback and Atlanta Falcons punter who wore a size 13. Word spread through Atlanta's sports community, and Friedman's became the store where professional athletes went for shoes that actually fit.
The sale of the building to SoDo Atlanta was the end of that era and the beginning of another. As Cummings described the broader vision: "We are helping fellow Atlantans rediscover the past."
The World Cup Catalyst
The timing is not accidental. SoDo Atlanta's plans include converting the Mitchell and Broad parking lot into a town square for the 2026 FIFA World Cup — a temporary activation that could become permanent if the foot traffic justifies it. The company also purchased 77 and 81 Peachtree Street, adding 21,000 square feet near Underground Atlanta to its holdings.
Birdsong has emphasized that the district's "brick structures and history" offer "the most unique" development opportunity in the city, benefiting from proximity to the stadium, the arena, and the massive Gulch project across the railroad tracks. The bet is that South Downtown's history — its 130-year-old buildings, its railroad-era street grid, its layered stories — is an asset, not an obstacle.
Original reporting by Steve Hullinger, Georgia Public Broadcasting, January 30, 2025.
