At cusp of Centennial Park, hotel development seeks buyer, builder

A downtown hotel project that would overlook Centennial Olympic Park is designed, permitted, and ready to move forward in hopes of capturing 2026 FIFA World Cup crowds. The only missing piece is a company capable of building it.

That’s the word from commercial real estate brokerage firm Marcus & Millichap, which listed for sale today a 355 Centennial Olympic Park Drive site where a 14-story Residence Inn By Marriott is set to move forward with a franchise flag in place.

Located diagonal from downtown’s signature park, the .8-acre site is a former gravel parking lot that’s been fenced-off and used sparingly for several years. The asking price for the land and permitted hotel plans is $14.5 million.

The property is marketed as being in Atlanta’s “hotel zone” and “completely construction ready, with full construction plans permitted and entitlements in place,” per listings.

The location is a mile from Mercedes-Benz Stadium, where World Cup matches will be played, and many of its hotel rooms would overlook the Georgia Aquarium, National Center for Civil and Human Rights, World of Coca-Cola, and other downtown attractions.

Plans approved by the City of Atlanta call for the 14-story building to include 188 rooms, with guests housed on the top seven floors. 

The bottom five stories would be used for 129 parking spaces and electric-vehicle charging stations, all wrapped in a perforated screen, according to Niles Bolton Associates, the Atlanta-based architecture firm behind interior, exterior, and landscape designs.

Other aspects would include a third-party bar and restaurant space at street level, a pool deck over Ivan Allen Jr. Boulevard, and a terrace with views across Centennial Olympic Park.

High End Investments, a Houston-based developer, applied for building permits with the city in early 2023 for the Residence Inn but appears to have backed away from developing it. The project would have marked the company’s first project in Atlanta.

High End paid $3.8 million for the parcel, which had traded for $10.5 million in pre-recession 2008, according to Fulton County property records. A 10-story Candlewood Suites was once briefly floated for the same corner site, but the COVID-19 pandemic squashed those plans.

Located diagonal from the park’s north end, near Georgia Aquarium, the hotel building would stand three stories shorter than Kaplan Residential’s Generation Atlanta apartments next door. That 17-story project finished construction in summer 2020, offering 336 rentals, and was sold the following year for a record sum for downtown. (Documents shared with Urbanize Atlanta this month indicate that property is scheduled for foreclosure proceedings Sept. 3, regarding a $104 million loan through Arbor Realty Participation LLC.)

Designs for the Residence Inn are meant to strike “a balance between playfulness and sophistication,” with “décor [that] is crisp and modern, emphasizing earth tones and natural textures and materials like stone, concrete, and hardwood,” per Niles Bolton’s description.

Should it move forward, the Residence Inn would join several hospitality ventures recently delivered or in the works near downtown’s signature park.

The 22-story Margaritaville resort condo building by Wyndham Destinations, also fronting Centennial Olympic Park Drive, opened in 2022 with 200 suites and two floors of retail near SkyView Atlanta. The Signia by Hilton project delivered almost 1,000 hotel rooms earlier this year, and Centennial Yards expects to finish its 229-room Anthem hotel sometime next year. 

Also near the Georgia Aquarium, the Moxy Centennial Olympic Park project—a 13-story, 183-room property—is scheduled to finish construction and open in the second quarter of 2026.

In the gallery above, find more Residence Inn site context and images.

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