Georgia State University reveals glimpses of Turner Field area’s future

While the Braves ready for their opening season at SunTrust Park, Georgia State University and developer Carter are wasting no time laying out their vision for the adaptive-reuse of Turner Field and surrounding parking lots.

After the first of the year, GSU made good on a deal to purchase the former Olympic Stadium for conversion into a home field for their football team, while Carter plans to fill the surrounding land with a mix of housing, retail, offices. Remaining land will allow plenty of space for GSU to create an athletics complex and student spaces, officials say.

While a Livable Centers Initiative study released last summer offered a glimpse into possible development schemes, more concrete phasing and planning studies have now been released.

The AJC reports that work will begin soon to transform Turner Field into a football stadium. Shovels will also soon turn on an 850-bed private student housing complex in the western reaches of Summerhill, and a 200-unit apartment stack atop ground-floor retail at the northeast corner of Georgia Avenue and Hank Aaron Drive.

However, much of the 68-acre site will remain untouched this year as plans are finalized for the relocation of Georgia State’s athletic offices and the school’s hospitality program to the former stadium.

Additionally, further down the road, new retail will reportedly be added along Hank Aaron Drive, and a new baseball stadium will be construction on the footprint of old Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

Grid View

• A plaza surrounded by restaurants and shops. Carter via AJC
• Light rail traversing the commercial corridor of Hank Aaron Drive.
• The preliminary land use plan for the area, part of the Summerhill conceptual master plan. Summerhill Master Plan via AJC
• Carter via AJC

Developers and the university hope a light rail line will — eventually — connect Summerhill to downtown across Interstate 20, uniting the athletic campus with the heart of GSU.

• How Turner Field might look in the near future [AJC]