For decades, the 40-plus acres of exposed rail lines west of Five Points went by a name that told you everything: the Gulch. Now a Bloomberg feature pulls back the curtain on how Hawks owner Tony Ressler assembled one of the most unusual investor coalitions in American real estate to turn it into Centennial Yards, the $5 billion district rising between Mercedes-Benz Stadium and State Farm Arena.
The story opens at the Hotel Phoenix — the 19-story hotel that was among the first Centennial Yards buildings to debut — where Usher worked the room, Killer Mike and 2 Chainz held court at the bar, 94-year-old Andrew Young savored a moment he had long awaited, and Mayor Andre Dickens declared that downtown is back. The scene was the payoff of a strategy Hawks CEO Steve Koonin summed up as doing things the Atlanta way: in a city shaped by Black political and economic leadership, sitting between Sweet Auburn and the Atlanta University Center, a project of this scale could not be built by outside capital alone.
Before the pandemic, Ressler convened roughly 30 people — almost all Black Atlanta business figures, from Will Packer and the Russell family to Southern Co. CEO Chris Womack — and made an offer: invest your own money and lend your credibility, and he would match every dollar while structuring the deal to limit their risk. He acknowledged plainly that deals like this had historically left Black investors out, and said he wanted to change that. The resulting group — which came to include Usher, 2 Chainz, Killer Mike, Shaquille O'Neal and Andrew Young III — owns about a third of the project, with co-developer CIM Group controlling the rest.
The engineering and political lift has been enormous. The site required building over active rail lines and a major water tunnel, roughly $1.8 billion in upfront infrastructure, three mayoral administrations and a court fight that ended with the state supreme court blessing $557 million in bonds backed by future district tax revenue. The nearly $2 billion in public incentives only flow if the district actually generates new taxes — Invest Atlanta chief Eloisa Klementich notes the city put in no upfront capital and takes on no risk. Community benefits negotiated under then-Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms include a $28 million affordable housing trust fund, child savings accounts and workforce training — though Bloomberg also reports CIM paid an $8.5 million fine rather than include affordable units in the district's newest 304-unit apartment tower.
The stakes are bigger than one development. Downtown's office vacancy sits at 33%, the worst in the city, and the Gulch has swallowed grand plans for generations. For Young, who first arrived in Atlanta by train at the Gulch at age 14, the project is unfinished business — a hole in the heart of the city he hopes becomes the axle around which Atlanta spins. With the Phoenix, two residential towers and the Cosm entertainment dome open, and full buildout not expected until 2031, Ressler concedes he wishes it were further along — but the momentum downtown has been waiting on for half a century is finally visible.
Original reporting: Bloomberg (2026-03-26)
