Every era of South Downtown Atlanta traces back to one afternoon: December 19, 2023, when Atlanta Tech Village founders David Cummings and Jon Birdsong announced they were stepping in to rescue a decade of stalled redevelopment plans for the historic blocks south of Five Points.
The announcement capped a rough stretch for the neighborhood. German real estate firm Newport RE had spent the better part of a decade quietly assembling more than 50 buildings and 6 acres of parking lots across roughly 10 blocks in the disinvested area just east of the Gulch, publishing ambitious renderings as early as 2017. But by July 2023, Newport pulled out, citing COVID-era delays, the war in Europe, and rising interest rates. A planned sale to Atlanta developer Braden Fellman Group never closed, and some of the properties slid into foreclosure.
Cummings and Birdsong — already known around Atlanta for building Atlanta Tech Village into one of the country's largest startup hubs, just up the road in Buckhead — moved to keep the vision alive. Their December announcement confirmed they had put all 53 parcels and the accompanying parking lots under their ownership, and brought on April Stammel, a former Newport marketing and leasing executive, to help shape the next chapter.
Notably, the new owners were careful not to overpromise. "As the dust settles amid any financial transaction, particularly one of this magnitude, we're reluctant to announce grandiose plans or visions yet," the pair wrote at the time. Their stated first priority was listening — to residents, to the buildings themselves, to what a walkable, historic downtown neighborhood could actually become.
They also named the deadline that would come to define the next three years of work: the 2026 FIFA World Cup, set to bring the world to Atlanta's doorstep. "As the world awaits to enter our doorstep for the World Cup in the summer of 2026," the announcement read, the redevelopment plan would need to move with real urgency.
One thread of continuity survived the ownership change intact — Thai restaurant Tyde Tate Kitchen, which had opened on Historic Hotel Row that April and quickly became a neighborhood fixture, standing as proof that Newport's original vision still had life in it even as the deal fell apart around it.
Looking back from today's vantage point — Founders Green open, dozens of storefronts filled, a World Cup successfully hosted — it's easy to forget how uncertain this moment actually was. "Every great city in the world has a vibrant downtown," Cummings and Birdsong wrote. "It's Atlanta's turn." Three years later, that line reads less like a hope and more like a plan that worked.
Original reporting by Josh Green for Urbanize Atlanta, published December 19, 2023.
