With Atlanta's first 2026 FIFA World Cup match roughly 216 days away, South Downtown is trying something other than waiting for permanent tenants: renting its finished space by the season.
District leadership is wrapping up what it considers Wave 1 of the revival spread across the 10 blocks of old downtown buildings and parking lots Atlanta Ventures purchased nearly two years ago. To carry that momentum into next summer, the team is releasing roughly 10 revived spaces on short-term leases of just two or three months — what it is calling “summer leases.”
The target tenant list is deliberately broad: “cool brands” running hospitality experiences, smaller businesses, and larger corporations looking to position themselves in front of an expected three and a half million World Cup visitors downtown next summer.
The short-term opportunities extend beyond Hotel Row into other renovated buildings across the portfolio, and run alongside the long-term leasing announcements that have continued through the year.
It is a pragmatic answer to a real timing problem. The buildings are finished or nearly finished, the permanent tenants take longer to sign than a construction schedule does, and the single largest burst of foot traffic in the district's modern history arrives on a fixed date.
Source: Urbanize Atlanta, published November 2025.