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MLS awarded the 2018 All-Star Game to Mercedes-Benz Stadium after Atlanta United's inaugural season shattered every attendance record in the league — including a single-game mark of 71,874 against Toronto FC.
In 2017, Arthur Blank's Atlanta United launched its inaugural MLS season with 30,000 season ticket holders, a world-class roster, and a sold-out temporary home at Georgia Tech — months before Mercedes-Benz Stadium opened its doors.
Twenty years after the 1996 Games, artist John Ryan — the man who designed the most controversial mascot in Olympic history — broke his silence. His message: "What happened to Izzy is not his fault."
By 2016, Atlanta was simultaneously building a $1.5 billion football stadium downtown and a $672 million baseball stadium in Cobb County. The scale of the investment — and the public money involved — forced a citywide reckoning with what stadiums actually do for the communities around them.
After its first year of free rides along Auburn Avenue, the Atlanta Streetcar had carried nearly one million riders, generated $671 million in nearby investment, and earned a grade of B or C from the people who rode it most.
On December 30, 2014, Mayor Kasim Reed presided over a grand opening ceremony at Woodruff Park as the Atlanta Streetcar began its 2.7-mile route through downtown — connecting Centennial Olympic Park to the Martin Luther King Jr. Historic District with 12 stops along the way.
Mayor Kasim Reed confirmed in December 2014 that WRS Inc. would purchase Underground Atlanta for $25.8 million, ending decades of city ownership and launching a new chapter for one of downtown's most storied — and most troubled — properties.
In April 2014, Arthur Blank was days away from announcing an MLS expansion franchise for Atlanta — a city that analysts said was "a bit of an underrated soccer city" despite never having had a top-tier professional team.
Dragon Con projected a record 57,000 attendees for its 2013 convention — up from 52,000 the previous year — as the pop culture gathering spread across five downtown hotels and spilled into Atlanta's streets for its signature Saturday parade.
A construction crew digging near Centennial Olympic Park in July 2013 pulled a cannonball from the ground — a likely remnant of the 1864 federal siege of Atlanta, when Union forces fired thousands of shells into the downtown area.
On May 20, 2013, the Atlanta City Council voted unanimously to approve SkyView Atlanta — a 20-story Ferris wheel next to The Tabernacle that had previously stood in Paris and Pensacola.
When the 2013 NCAA Final Four came to the Georgia Dome, it brought 100,000 out-of-town visitors, nearly tripled hotel rates, and generated a projected $70 million in economic impact — all concentrated in the blocks around Centennial Olympic Park.
The Atlanta City Council voted 11–4 in March 2013 to use $200 million in hotel-motel tax revenue toward a retractable-roof stadium in downtown Atlanta — the building that would open four years later as Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
On August 23, 2010, Guinness World Records officially certified the Georgia Aquarium as the world's largest aquarium — a distinction it had held since opening in 2005, with more than 8 million gallons of water across its exhibits.
