The cranes and gut renovations that defined South Downtown for two and a half years are pausing. SoDo ATL, the real estate company run by Jon Birdsong that controls the 10-block district four blocks south of the state capitol, says Phase I is finished and the next job is leasing — apartments at 85 Peachtree St. and the string of storefronts on Broad Street that are still dark. Birdsong told Rough Draft Atlanta the company will "let the market marinate" before committing to Phase II.
The numbers explain the caution. Of the 26 renovated residential units at 85 Peachtree, the former Bass Dry Goods building and a National Register property that cannot be demolished, six have been rented after less than a month of online marketing. The building offers 14 floor plans: studios of 640 to 654 square feet at $1,825 to $1,950 a month, and two-bedroom, two-bath units of 853 to 1,222 square feet at $2,500 to $3,500. Per square foot that undercuts Midtown and runs above Castleberry Hill next door. "We're not going to go build more housing if we can't lease out the 26 that we just spent $28 million creating," Birdsong said. On the commercial side, SoDo ATL has 11 units on Broad Street available and only two are occupied.
The redevelopment rests on a $140 million investment from venture capitalist David Cummings, alongside city money and an active neighborhood association, aimed at converting mostly turn-of-the-century buildings into 140 housing units plus office and retail. Birdsong and Cummings bought the project from German developer Newport RE in 2023 after Newport's investor funding collapsed. Progress is real but partial: 25 of the 58 historic buildings SoDo ATL acquired are in development, and only 8% of its surface parking lots. Last month the company laid off four full-time employees who oversaw individual project sites and said it was scaling back toward a more sustainable footing.
What downtown visitors can already see is the retail base. Brewhouse Cafe, Delilah's Everyday Soul, Broad Street BBQ, Glide Pizza, El Tesoro, Bottle Rocket, Spiller Park Coffee, The Junction and Tyde Tate Kitchen are open, with retailers KMM & Co., Brown Toy Box, Crates ATL and Village Books filling storefronts. Smorgasburg Atlanta runs weekends in the lot between Mitchell Street and Trinity Avenue. Ida's Kitchen Counter and Mule Train are due in August and Estrellita this winter. Offices followed too: Atlanta Tech Village opened its second location in the former Sylvan Hotel on Mitchell Street in January 2025, AdPipe moved its headquarters in during September 2025 after raising $12 million and plans to grow from 35 to 50 employees by the end of 2026, and Dr. Noze Best relocated in October 2025.
Operators say the swings are the problem. More than 40,000 people came through the district in June and July while Atlanta hosted World Cup matches, and Broad Street BBQ co-owner Jason Furst said a match week could mean $2,000 one day and $20,000 the next. "What I'm more interested in is 2,000 people down there every Friday, Saturday and Sunday," he said. "I want a neighborhood." Spiller Park Coffee founder Dale Donchey, who signed his Mitchell Street lease before the World Cup bid was even announced, said restaurants will keep yo-yoing their hours until enough people actually live nearby: a district of commuters who leave at 5 p.m. does not sustain dinner service. Tenants have signed 10- and 20-year leases, and Donchey said he is in it for the long haul.
April Stammel, who handles marketing and engagement for SoDo ATL, was blunt about where things stand: it is not yet a 24/7 neighborhood, the company knows it, and it expects the work to take time. Birdsong framed the shift as moving from building at all costs to operational efficiency, with alternating stretches of construction and consolidation stretching decades out. For anyone tracking downtown, the meaningful metric for the next year is not new groundbreakings — it is how fast those 26 apartments and nine empty Broad Street bays fill.
Original reporting: Rough Draft Atlanta (2026-08-03)
