There’s nowhere quite like Downtown Atlanta.
From its historic architecture and iconic skyline to its national recognition as a hotbed for sports and politics, Downtown is the visible soul of our city. It’s the Georgia-Pacific building towering over Peachtree Street and the half-eaten chicken wing on the corner of Luckie and Cone. It’s the GSU student on their walk to class and the family on their stroll to the Aquarium. The man in his car on his morning commute. The senior waiting for the bus. And yes, it’s the woman sleeping under a blanket in a vacant parking lot.
Which is all to say, Downtown is unique because it’s a microcosm of our city as a whole. The issues we face are symbolic of those facing the entire Atlanta region. It’s just that here, everything positive and negative is on full display.
It comes as no surprise then that Downtown is seeing historic levels of investment ahead of the 2026 World Cup, that not-so-little sporting event that will broadcast the ATL to hundreds of millions of television screens across the globe. And we will be ready!
GO DEEPER WITH ROUGH DRAFT: More coverage of the 2025 Atlanta Downtown Annual Meeting & Awards Celebration
In addition to all the recent positive development news out of Centennial Yards and South Downtown, as well as the City passing a Downtown infrastructure bill, Representative Nikema Williams has just announced $2.8 million in federal funding to reconnect vital parts of our neighborhood. Divided into two grants, these awards will fund planning efforts to explore how to make streets safer, more walkable, and more accessible for everyone. One grant of $2 million was awarded to the City of Atlanta in partnership with Centennial Yards to advance a pedestrian connection between Forsyth Street and Ted Turner Drive. Sweet Auburn Works also received $800,000 to advance to advance designs that will reconnect the beloved community.
I’m proud to say CAP has worked closely alongside Sweet Auburn Works to get to this point, and we’re excited to see how this cherished neighborhood will continue to evolve.
These grants follow last year’s announcement that The Stitch, the ambitious project to build a park over the Downtown Connector, would receive $158 million for construction of its first phase. This is the largest federal award in our region’s history and, along with the recently announced funding, is further proof that our neighborhood is on the precipice of a new era.
Just as Downtown has always been the visible soul of Atlanta, it now holds the promise to become a true symbol of our city’s progress.
