Fulton County has put a number on the Atlanta City Detention Center, and it is well short of what the city wanted. In a letter Tuesday, county commissioners offered $56.6 million for the 17-story downtown facility — against the $80 million Mayor Andre Dickens had asked before withdrawing his offer.
The county says its figure comes from a 2025 broker opinion of value issued by CBRE Group, and factors in roughly $75 million in renovations it would need to perform at the building \"given its age and the purpose for which the facility is needed.\" Commissioners set an expiration on the offer and gave the city until 5 p.m. Aug. 31 to respond.
The dispute is older than this exchange. Fulton has been trying to buy the jail for 17 years, and commissioners noted that previous mayors considered transferring the building to the county at no cost. \"We agree that ACDC should be fully available for utilization by the County, but Atlanta has consistently resisted finalizing a deal to make that happen,\" the commission wrote, arguing a transfer would save Atlanta roughly $27 million a year in maintenance and operations. A city spokesperson replied that Atlanta \"is pleased that after two years of conversations, Fulton has finally decided to respond with an offer\" and would respond in full soon.
Tied up in it is a much larger question about downtown's finances. Dickens withdrew the sale offer after Fulton commissioners voted against participating in the city's Neighborhood Reinvestment Initiative, and he needs both the county and the Atlanta Board of Education to extend several tax allocation districts to fund that program. In a July 30 letter he called the county's vote \"not only bad governance, but also a regrettable decision that will cost more and deliver less for our city, county and region.\"
The building itself has been contested for years. The 1,300-bed facility has sat in the middle of a tense city-county relationship, while the city and jail reform advocates have pushed to convert it into a center for mental health and substance abuse treatment. Former Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced in 2019 that the city would close it and turn it into a diversion center. In 2022 the City Council approved leasing up to 700 beds to Fulton to ease crowding at its Rice Street jail — a lease that expires at the end of this year — and in October 2024 the Center for Diversion Services opened in unused space inside.
What downtown gets out of all this is unresolved. A full city block at Peachtree and Memorial either changes hands, changes use, or sits largely empty once the county's lease runs out.
Original reporting: Axios Atlanta (2026-08-13)