Should Mercedes-Benz's 'Backyard' be plowed for more development?

Call it keeping up with the Joneses on an extreme scale.

With the 2026 World Cup on the horizon, ambitious development plans heating up at nearby Centennial Yards, South Downtown showing signs of a rebound once again, and now CNN Center promising an upscale revival, the Georgia World Congress Center Authority has set plans in motion to possibly redevelop the Home Depot Backyard less than six years after it opened.

The 11-acre hybrid greenspace, set between Mercedes-Benz Stadium and the new Signia by Hilton Atlanta Hotel tower, is used for tailgating during large events such as Atlanta Falcons and United games, but also for community gatherings, including summer movie nights and free yoga. It was created in the footprint of the Georgia Dome—a crushed layer of the old stadium, several feet thick, lies beneath the Backyard’s grasses to help with irrigation, in fact—and was billed from its conception as a park space for uplifting Westside communities.

But that could change. At least to some degree.

The GWCCA, which owns the Backyard space, issued a Request for Qualifications on April 1 seeking firms that could help create what’s being called an “entertainment development project,” as the AJC first reported.

GWCCA officials are specifically hoping to hear from architecture, engineering, landscape architecture, and other firms that could replace the Backyard space with development geared toward entertainment. The goal, according to a GWCCA statement, is to create a “seamless integration” of entertainment venues, convention center buildings, and greenspace on the westernmost fringe of downtown.

No budget or timeline for the project has been established. Ditto for details on exactly what it might entail.

The RFQ makes no mention of residential, commercial, or any other type of specific uses.

The Benz opened just south of the convention center property in 2017, and its versatile Backyard debuted in September the following year, with restrooms, a playground, and sculptures included. It can host more than 500 vehicles for tailgating on game days.

The GWCCA’s call to firms in the development field was issued one week after Centennial Yards went public with splashy plans for its own entertainment hub, scheduled to be built in time for World Cup hoopla.  

Time appears to be of the essence. All written questions to the GWCCA are due by April 15, and the deadline for submitting qualifications is May 1. Finalists are scheduled to be notified by May 15.

According to the RFQ, three to five finalist firms will be picked and ranked according to their bona fides. They will all be barred from publicly announcing that they’re finalists.

The push to possibly redevelop the Backyard should come as little surprise, given recent activity at downtown property owned by GWCCA. The authority issued a separate RFQ last year for a development team to update its master plan for the first time since 2008.

Those plans call for modernizing one of three convention buildings so that it better links with downtown streets, expanding meeting space to become a dedicated conference center, and improvements to internal connections around the sprawling complex, which at 3.9 million square feet qualifies as the nation’s fourth largest. In its call for developers last year, GWCCA cited “recent changes in the development environment” around its campus as one reason a planning revamp is necessary.

Elsewhere, the GWCCA property has hardly been stagnant in recent years.

A pedestrian mall that consumed former vehicle lanes and an $18-million transportation hub for bus, taxi, and ride-share options opened near State Farm Arena in 2022. And Atlanta’s tallest new hotel in nearly four decades—the 976-room Signia by Hilton—opened next door to convention spaces in January.

But is another entertainment complex what Atlanta needs, in a location like this? 

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