Georgia Dome-replacing hotel shown in new renderings

Hotel connected to GWCC Hall 3 could have between 800 and 1,000 rooms, so it’s kind of a big deal

By Michael Kahn Aug 2, 2017, 11:15am EDT

A large glass tower, above a pool, overlooking the lot where the Dome stands now. — An aerial rendering of the hotel. (Note the helicopter).

With just weeks until Mercedes-Benz Stadium hosts its first event, longterm plans for the next life of the adjacent site—currently home to the Georgia Dome—are starting to take shape.

The Georgia World Congress Center Authority, which owns and oversees the Dome (along with the GWCC complex and Centennial Olympic Park), has published renderings of a large hotel planned to rise once the stadium is imploded in November.

According to the GWCC website, a new four-star hotel could bring between 800 and 1,000 rooms to the southern end of the convention center, near Northside Drive. That would rank the new lodge between the fifth largest hotel in Atlanta (Omni Atlanta Hotel; 1,038 rooms) and the current sixth (Sheraton Atlanta Hotel; 749 rooms).

As shown, the glassy concept would fill the northern portion of the Georgia Dome’s current site, leaving plenty of space for the “Home Depot Backyard”—a park-parking lot hybrid announced earlier this year.

A report by PKF Hospitality Research LLC indicates that even an 800-room hotel could generate revenue of nearly $3 million a year for the GWCCA and create more than 1,600 jobs.

The hotel concept has been in the works since 2013, and preliminary renderings emerged in 2014, but very little concrete information has been released in the years since.

While no timeline has been announced for the hotel’s construction, the report containing the renderings is dubbed “2020 Vision,” hinting that the goal might be to have the project complete in three years.