The Former CNN Center’s World Cup Bet Is Unfinished

The former CNN Center reopened as The CTR on May 20, 2026, with a food hall aimed at Atlanta’s World Cup crowds. CP Group and Mayor Andre Dickens marked the atrium that Wednesday, and a public grand opening followed on June 12 and 13, two days before Spain met Cabo Verde at Atlanta Stadium.

The hall is open. The tournament is over. Most of the 1.2 million square feet around that atrium still needs a tenant.

A Food Hall Opened While the Towers Stayed Empty

CP Group, which bought the complex in 2021, spent years calling the old news headquarters a fortress. Founding partner Chris Eachus said the closed-off single-tenant years had cut the building off from downtown, and the firm’s own project update framed the conversion as a shift $50 million into exterior renovations plus $15 million of atrium work, a $65 million first wave timed to the building’s 50th anniversary and to FIFA’s arrival.

Ryan Howard, CP Group’s senior vice president of construction and development, said in late April that more than 90% of The Center still sat empty. That was before the stalls opened. It is the figure that makes the food hall look small against the towers it is supposed to restart.

THE BUILDING IN NUMBERS

• The complex: 1.2 million square feet, purchased by CP Group in 2021 after CNN left downtown.
• The food hall: a 24,000-square-foot atrium operation branded CTR Food Works.
• The first spend: $50 million on exteriors and arrivals, $15 million on the atrium, completed ahead of May.
• The April vacancy: more than 90% of the property unoccupied, per Howard, weeks before the first stall served a plate.

A June C-PACE loan from Peachtree Group added $56.4 million of 30-year financing, in a joint venture with Rialto Capital Management, for HVAC, lighting, plumbing, and LED displays. That money is built for a multi-year conversion, not for a four-week soccer party. The city treated the May 20 launch celebration as a downtown coming-out. The debt schedule is the truer calendar.

Eleven Kitchens Around Georgia’s Largest Bar

CTR Food Works, run by Robert Montwaid of Chattahoochee Food Works and Gansevoort Market in New York, now lists 11 chef-driven dining concepts plus one bar at 190 Marietta Street NW. Montwaid signed a long-term lease to curate the hall. Seating runs about 500 across banquettes, tables, and high-tops. Hours are 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday, and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Thursday through Saturday.

CP Group calls the central bar Georgia’s largest. Tiffany Howell, who built the cocktail list at Chattahoochee Food Works, runs the program. The unnamed cheesesteak stall that developers were still shopping in the spring opened as Rivalry Beef. Eggflip × SushiFlip took the other open slot, pairing Korean breakfast with hand rolls.

THE 11 STALLS NOW OPEN

The mix is a copy of other Atlanta food halls in form, which is the knock that lands, and a different animal in scale, which is the defense. Colony Square’s Politan Row already taught the city this layout. The CTR’s atrium is the old CNN living room, a glass volume built for tourists staring at a newsroom, now asked to sell chicken and cocktails to Hawks crowds, conventioneers, and whoever still works downtown.

Eight World Cup Matches Put the Atrium to Work

Atlanta Stadium hosted eight World Cup matches in Atlanta from June 15 through July 15, five in the group stage plus a round of 32, a round of 16, and a semifinal. The CTR sat between Centennial Olympic Park, State Farm Arena, the Omni Hotel, and the Georgia World Congress Center, with the stadium a short walk away. CP Group lent the building to ATL House, the host committee’s private headquarters with the Metro Atlanta Chamber, and to the local volunteer operation, which the city put at more than 3,000 people.

On June 28, the official FIFA Fan Festival at Centennial Olympic Park hit capacity. The City of Atlanta pointed leftover fans to The CTR, Centennial Yards, Castleberry Hill, Underground Atlanta, and Grub Alley. England’s supporters’ group later listed The CTR among downtown eating spots and parked a fans’ embassy in the shade outside the Omni and the Center before the July 15 semifinal.

The FIFA Fan Festival at Centennial Olympic Park is at capacity for today's FIFA World Cup 2026™ match, but the excitement continues across Atlanta.
Catch the match at The CTR, Centennial Yards, Castleberry Hill, Underground Atlanta, Grub Alley and more. pic.twitter.com/0qT3xX2e4M

— City of Atlanta, GA (@CityofAtlanta) June 28, 2026

A FIFA merchandise shop operated in the atrium at launch, one of five metro locations. An official store is a tournament tool, and the directory no longer treats it as a permanent tenant. The useful test was cruder: air conditioning, a giant screen, and a tunnel that no longer looked like a warning. That is a low bar for a landmark, and it is also the first time in years the building had a public job on a match day.

The Fortress That Used to Broadcast the World

The same atrium has failed, then paid, then gone quiet before. Cousins Properties opened in 1976 as Omni International, a hotel, two office towers, shops, an ice rink, and the World of Sid and Marty Krofft, billed as the country’s first indoor theme park. The park closed within six months. A 1970s nightclub had a run. The connected Omni Coliseum next door held the Atlanta Flames and the Hawks until the arena came down in 1997 and State Farm Arena rose on the site.

THE BUILDING’S OTHER LIVES

1. 1976: Omni International opens; the Krofft indoor park shuts within six months.
2. 1985 to 1987: Ted Turner buys 75% of the complex in 1985, the rest in 1986; the property is renamed CNN Center, and the network’s downtown headquarters goes on the air in 1987.
3. 2021: CP Group buys the 1.2-million-square-foot property.
4. Early 2024: CNN’s downtown floors sit empty after the network moves staff back to the Midtown Techwood campus.
5. May 20, 2026: The CTR launch ceremony reopens the atrium.
6. June 12 to July 15, 2026: Grand opening, then eight World Cup matches.
7. September 30, 2026: Live-K Karaoke signs a lease as a third construction phase starts.

Turner did not invent mixed-use on Marietta Street. He gave a scattered complex one tenant the world already knew, then put glass studios in the atrium so visitors could watch the news being made. CNN’s own history of the building is blunt about the 1970s failure: the amusement crowd and the office crowd never fit. Eachus is now selling the reverse, an open building for every day, all day, with three 12-story LED signs and a culture program run with Bem Joiner of Atlanta Influences Everything and Neda Abghari of ASHA Advisory. T Lang Dance, the Public Art Futures Lab, and Gallery FC already occupy CTR Culture Studios.

Office Tenants Are the Bet That Remains

Hines handles retail leasing. CBRE is shopping office floors as large as 317,000 square feet. On September 30, as the karaoke lease went out, CP Group said it was fielding more than 500,000 square feet of office interest. Interest is not occupancy. The third construction phase is a fitness center, a conference center, and a tenant lounge, the classic landlord kit for a market that no longer leases raw floor plates on a logo.

Howard had already sketched residential conversion of former hotel rooms that look into the courtyard, on the order of 200 apartments, with a similar hospitality block. That is not open. The World Cup could fill an atrium for a month. It cannot underwrite empty towers unless someone signs a lease that outlasts England and Argentina.

Downtown’s streets did fill in June and July, which is the evidence the skeptics were asked to swallow. The bones were never the problem. The unpaid bill is what happens when the last fan flies home and the Georgia World Congress Center is dark.

Live-K Takes the Old Dantanna’s Space

Live-K Karaoke signed a 10,500-square-foot lease for its first Georgia rooms, taking the former Dantanna’s space on Andrew Young International Boulevard, across from the Georgia World Congress Center. Owner Chris Zhu pointed at the same coordinates Everyus sells: the convention center, the park, the arenas, and a street a visitor can actually see. Opening is scheduled for fall 2027.

The Looking Glass, from AMP Up1 Hospitality, the team behind Your 3rd Spot at The Works, leased about 38,000 square feet for an adult playground that can hold 1,000 people. Construction was set to start after the Cup, with an opening in the second quarter of 2027. Mastro’s Ocean Club, the 8,200-square-foot steak and seafood anchor with rooms in Manhattan, Miami, and Newport Beach, is on pace for November.

STILL TO OPEN

• Mastro’s Ocean Club: 8,200 square feet of steak and seafood, targeted for November 2026.
• The Looking Glass: 38,000 square feet, capacity of 1,000, aimed at the second quarter of 2027.
• Live-K Karaoke: 10,500 square feet in the old Dantanna’s, first Georgia location, fall 2027.

The building’s own directory still lists coming-soon tenants in those slots, which is the honest version of the reopening. A food hall can cut a ribbon. A 1.2-million-square-foot mixed-use conversion cannot.

Who Shows Up on an Ordinary Tuesday Night?

Eachus has been saying the quiet part since spring: the Cup was a launch, not a business plan. When the Live-K deal closed, he put the next test in one sentence.

It gives people another reason to come downtown, stay longer, and come back… not just when there’s a game or convention, but on an ordinary Tuesday night.

Chris Eachus, founding partner, CP Group

That is the wager in plain language. The kitchens are serving. The bar is pouring. Mastro’s is due in November, karaoke in 2027, the immersive club after that. If those rooms draw people when Mercedes-Benz Stadium is dark, the fortress story ends. If they do not, The CTR is another atrium waiting on the next event.