One balmy night in the dead week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, ice skaters lapped each other on a wet rink, onlookers raised Tropicália glasses in toasts to the holiday season, and frustrated sports fans watched the Bulls trample the Hawks on outdoor televisions.
Despite the weather, a Winter Wonderland spirit was almost palpable at the reimagined Midtown landmark that is Colony Square. The old sprawling, glass-topped, dated urban food court seemed like an eerie ghost of Christmases past.
After almost four years of construction, the $400-million rebirth of the Southeast’s original mixed-use development may have wrapped last summer, but the Skate On the Square festivities—a nod to the indoor Colony Square Ice Capades Chalet attraction in the 1970s—has made the complex a wintertime destination again.
The rink remains open nightly at Colony Square through January 17. Cost is $18 for adults, $14 for kids. Josh Green/Urbanize Atlanta
We recently toured the reborn property, (narrowly) avoided splatting on the ice, and caught up with developer North American Properties to learn what’s new at Colony Square—and what’s on the 2022 horizon.
The 50-year-old complex’s renovation added 940,000 square feet of Class A office space—two original buildings were refurbished, with two more added—plus an infusion of 160,000 square feet for retail, restaurants (including stylish food hall Politan Row), and entertainment.
Those spaces are now 93 percent leased, officials recently told Urbanize Atlanta.
New restaurants in the mix include Saints + Council, Brown Bag Seafood Co., Serena Pastificio, and Sukoshi. They join “legacy” tenants that stuck through the construction years, ranging from 5Church Midtown and Establishment to a Chick-fil-A and Starbucks. A national dentistry called Tend was also recently signed.
Elsewhere, Persian cuisine favorite Rumi’s Kitchen is on pace to open this month, according to Colony Square reps. And the ballyhooed debut of Holeman and Finch Public House at Colony Square—a move from Buckhead first announced in the summer of 2019—is scheduled to happen this spring, alongside a health and wellness concept called onlYoga.
Head to the gallery for a look at where things stand now, at the outset of what could be an eventful year for Midtown’s so-called "living room."
• Recent Midtown news, discussion (Urbanize Atlanta)
