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Metro Atlanta’s next autonomous vehicle project has broken ground

Free automated network near ATL airport called “one of the region’s most innovative transit projects”

Another autonomous vehicle test project is officially en route, this time on the southern fringes of ITP Atlanta.

ATL Airport Community Improvement Districts officials broke ground last week on a long-planned Automated Transit Network Demonstration Pilot program, marking what project leaders called a major milestone for “one of the region’s most innovative transit projects.”

The pilot project calls for a free, public, on-demand ATN network that will stretch for ½ mile along a dedicated guideway, linking the ATL SkyTrain at the Georgia International Convention Center to the Gateway Center Arena.

The project will use technology from Glydways, a California-based self-driving vehicle developer.

Example of a Glydways vehicle bound for the 1/2-mile route on the southside. Glydways/ATL Airport Community Improvement Districts

The possibility of autonomous shuttles, buses, or pods zipping around near Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport has been explored for years. That push echoes alternative-transportation projects underway elsewhere in the metro, such as Cumberland’s forthcoming CAM Network and the Beltline-supported Beep project in Southwest Atlanta.

Near the airport, the goal of the ATN Demonstration Pilot is to showcase the capacity, scalability, and capabilities of such a system in real-world environments, according to project officials.

Gerald McDowell, AACIDs executive director, said in an announcement the pilot will provide “an innovative mobility solution for the future of transportation in our region.” Chris Riley, Glydways chief commercial officer, said the project “will demonstrate how our technology can be scaled and replicated in other communities, creating safe, cost-effective transit options across the country, and globally.”

The 1/2-mile pilot project is scheduled to open for public use in December.

Plans for the pilot Glydways route in relation to Georgia International Convention Center.Courtesy of ATL Airport Community Improvement Districts

Expansion beyond the initial route will hinge on a feasibility study led by MARTA that’s currently underway. Analysts will be closely monitoring the pilot project’s performance, scalability, and system capacity to determine if expansion to other south metro points of interest is feasible, per AACIDs leadership.

AACIDs, a self-taxing district of commercial property owners, comprises the Airport West CID and the Airport South CID and covers a 15.7-mile area across Fulton and Clayton Counties and several cities, including portions of Atlanta, East Point, Hapeville, South Fulton, College Park, and Forest Park.

A rendering illustrating Glydways functionality at the convention center stop on ITP Atlanta’s southside.Courtesy of ATL Airport Community Improvement Districts

A future alternative transit connection between the airport’s domestic and international terminals could also be in the works, AACIDs officials have said.

The logic goes that the service could help solve a primary complaint from international passengers—that connecting to MARTA from the international terminal is too difficult, or what Glydways officials have called a “missing link.”

Populous launches Atlanta office as stadium business booms

By Henry Queen – Staff Reporter, Atlanta Business Chronicle

Populous is setting up shop in Atlanta after 30 years of local projects dating back to the 1996 Olympic Games.

The global design firm recently debuted here with five employees but could rapidly grow, said Jonathan Mallie, managing director of the Americas at Populous. The office is at 505 North Angier Ave. NE, where the Industrious at Old Fourth Ward coworking space is located.

Industry veterans Rob Svedberg and Lee Pollock were recruited from TVS and Jacobs, respectively, to lead the office.

“We’ve always had an eye on the Southeast,” Maillie told Atlanta Business Chronicle in a phone interview. “But for one reason or another, we never opened an office in the Southeast despite the number of projects we had. Taking a look at the amount of work, Atlanta makes the most sense in the world. You’re talking about an international hub; an incredible, vibrant city; and a place that we’re extremely excited to be a part of.”

The company’s portfolio of work includes Truist Park; Georgia Tech’s McCamish Pavilion; Nashville, Tennessee’s Geodis Park soccer stadium; and the renovation of Synovus Park, the new home of the Atlanta Braves’ minor-league affiliate in Columbus. Then known as HOK Sport, the company was also instrumental in planning out the venues and temporary infrastructure for the ’96 Olympics.

Ongoing stadium projects in the Southeast are Mobile Arena in Alabama and the University of South Carolina’s Williams-Brice Stadium, which is benefiting from approximately $350 million in upgrades.

Kansas City, Missouri-based Populous is also active at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport through its subsidiary Fentress Studios, which it acquired for an undisclosed sum in June 2025. That Denver-based architecture firm is working to create a more efficient lobby and security checkpoint at the north terminal.

Airports are similar to stadiums, Maillie said, in that they draw large crowds of people and are ripe for improving the customer experience.

The people that Populous recruited to head the Atlanta office are notable. Svedberg was involved in the initial design work at LaGrange Cricket Stadium, the 10,500-seat project that broke ground late last year. Other projects of his include the expansion of New York City’s Javits Center, Mumbai’s Jio World Centre, Nashville’s new Nissan Stadium and the rooftop expansion of the Colorado Convention Center in Downtown Denver.

Pollock brings 30 years of design experience, with projects located in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Australia.

Other team members include Jonathan Bartlett, Matt Friesen and Meredith Mejia.

Just last month, Populous opened an office in Austin, Texas. Headcount at its Los Angeles office, meanwhile, grew about tenfold since its opening, Maille said.

“We have every intention of growing the Atlanta office,” Maille said. “It can move quickly if things are going well.”

Populous has 35 offices across the world, employing more than 1,600 people.

Last year, the firm relocated its Kansas City headquarters in the Country Club Plaza area to Downtown’s 1400KC building, also home to Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City.

Populous also recently launched a new real estate service focused on designing mixed-use districts around sports, entertainment and civic venues. Atlanta is a hotbed for that activity, as evidenced by The Battery Atlanta surrounding Truist Park and Centennial Yards rising in the shadows of Downtown’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium and State Farm Arena.

“We refer to them as experiential districts that are developing around venues,” Maillie said. “And those venues could be sports facilities, they could be purely concert venues. They could be airports, or they could be convention centers. [It’s] almost a movement right now.”

An extension to the National Center for Civil and Human Rights opens

Daniel Jonas Roche

The National Center for Civil and Human Rights (NCCHR) was founded in Georgia’s capital city by Shirley Franklin, Atlanta’s first African American woman mayor. It was designed by Phil Freelon, founder of The Freelon Group, and opened to the public in 2014. The Freelon Group was acquired by Perkins&Will that same year. Freelon died five years later, in 2019.

Today, the NCCHR houses the original manuscript of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and other Civil Rights Movement ephemera. A recent $58 million expansion to the NCCHR by Perkins&Will, Cooper Carry, and ATELIER BRÜCKNER affords the institution new and improved exhibition spaces.

NCCHR has two new wings attached to the original building that cumulatively total 28,733 square feet. Its Human Rights Gallery—dedicated to telling the stories of refugees and other oppressed peoples—has been upgraded and coalesces near a new Activation Lab, a space where visitors can design personal civic engagement plans.

The new east wing will host conferences, corporate retreats, weddings, milestone celebrations, and community gatherings. There, visitors can enjoy roof access and gaze out at the city beyond.

The extension is clad in bronze panels similar to the original volume completed in 2014 by Freelon. It tapers upward, much like the exterior glass and steel fountain by artist Larry Kirkland, featuring engraved texts by Nelson Mandela, Margaret Mead, and Dr. King.

With the extension, designed by Perkins&Will, the NCCHR can accommodate an estimated 250,000 annual visitors. Cooper Carry’s Experiential Graphic Design Studio and ATELIER BRÜCKNER were the exhibition designers.

And, indeed, the timing couldn’t be better.

Set against the backdrop of crackdowns at the Smithsonian Institution over alleged “divisive” and “improper” narratives, and the defunding of museums and schools nationwide, the NCCHR affirms it will stay the course and continue the work of its forbears, who faced similar adversity to progress.

Dr. Bernice King, the youngest child of Coretta Scott King and Dr. King, is the inaugural curator of a gallery entirely devoted to her father.

Elsewhere at NCCHR, the Without Sanctuary collection and a memorial by artist Lonnie Holley speak to Reconstruction after the U.S. Civil War. Another gallery exhibits Black Southern artists active in the 1980s who confronted white supremacy and built solidarity.

Jill Savitt, NCCHR president and CEO, said in a statement: “Our reopening arrives at a pivotal moment. The [NCCHR] exists to show how history speaks to the present. With these new galleries and spaces, we can offer not just stories of the past, but pathways for people to reflect, engage, and shape the future.”

“American history has never been a straight road. It has always been a dialogue between progress and pushback, between our highest ideals and forces that resist them,” Savitt added. “This expansion gives us new ways to share those stories with integrity, and to remind people that all of us can help bend the arc toward justice.”

Savitt touted the women-led design and development team. “This expansion carries the imprint of women’s leadership at every stage,” she said. “From our founder Shirley Franklin to our exhibit design, construction, and curation, women have shaped this expansion with care and vision.”

Perkins&Will recently completed another project involving Phil Freelon, the North Carolina Freedom Park in Raleigh, North Carolina. The public space features architecture inspired by civil leader and activist Lyda Moore Merrick.

In April 2026, at NCCHR, a new gallery for children under 12 years old will open to the public, which center officials call “a secret headquarters for change agents with interactive activities that build civic skills and curiosity about justice.”

Tech firm buys 10-acre Downtown Atlanta site for potential $3.8B project

By Henry Queen – Staff Reporter, Atlanta Business Chronicle

Ten acres in the heart of Downtown Atlanta have sold to a company that envisions an eye-catching project on property that is no stranger to ambitious proposals.

Webstar Technology Group on Wednesday said it closed on the site at the corner of Ted Turner Drive SW and Whitehall Street SW in the Castleberry Hill area. The price was not disclosed, and a deed for the sale has not yet been recorded. Previous financial disclosures said the sale was valued at $33 million.

David Branch and Peyton Stinson with SSG Realty Partners represented the seller, McCall Railroad LLC. Jae Kim with CBRE represented the buyer, a subsidiary of Webstar called Forge Atlanta Asset Management. The firm has said it will sell cryptocurrency tokens to help finance the project. That would not “replace traditional financing, but rather adds a new, carefully structured opportunity,” per the company.

“Closing on the land for Forge Atlanta marks a major milestone in our vision to transform an under‑utilized industrial block into a vibrant, mixed‑use district,” Webstar Technology Group CEO Ricardo Haynes said in a statement. “By integrating traditional real estate financing with compliant blockchain technology, we are opening the door for residents, investors and communities to participate in Atlanta’s growth.”

In 2021, Urbantec Development Partners proposed a life science research hub for the site — a plan that fizzled two years later. Kim, a vice president at CBRE, led that company and still has a small stake in the new Forge Atlanta project.

Webstar, a public company, is valued at roughly a penny on OTC Markets, though it has inched up in recent days. As of Sept. 30, Webstar had $7,789 in cash and a little over $600,000 in total assets — most of which were related to this real estate project, according to a recent U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Phase 1 of Forge Atlanta, as this project has been dubbed, would include a 300‑key hotel, approximately 600 residential condominiums, and about 60,500 square feet of retail and entertainment space, according to a news release. About 1,600 parking spaces are also planned. The condos are expected to be priced from $750,000 to $2.4 million.

SSG listing — The 10-acre Downtown Atlanta site that sold on Dec. 17 is highlighted in yellow.

A September feasibility study from CBRE and Turner and Townsend said the overall plan is to build 950 hotel rooms, over 2,300 condo units, two 300,000-square-foot office buildings, two 100,000-square-foot data centers, two 40,000-square-foot conference centers, a 50,000-square-foot entertainment center and more.

Across all phases, there may be more than 8.5 million square feet of development, carrying a cost of $3.77 billion, according to the feasibility study. Ernst & Young and Develop Fulton projected the full project would create 3,000 jobs (construction and permanent) and generate an economic impact of over $7 billion, Webstar said.

It’s a staggering proposal that raises some questions. Bisnow reported in July that Webstar has left behind a trail of red flags, including nonexistent permits, collapsed land deals and unverifiable resumes.

Some elements of the project may be difficult to execute. In 2024, the city of Atlanta banned new data center development within a half-mile of MARTA stations, and the Forge property is within that distance from MARTA’s Garnett station. Condo development in Atlanta has been limited in the near two decades since the Great Recession. New office construction has plummeted since the pandemic.

Plus, Downtown Atlanta does not typically attract projects of this scale meant to make a profit. The ongoing $5 billion Centennial Yards development is supported by up to $1.9 billion in public financing, which was approved by Atlanta City Council in 2018.

Meanwhile, the nearby revitalization of historic buildings in South Downtown is made possible because of tech entrepreneur David Cummings’ investment, bolstered by proceeds from the growth and eventual sales of his former startups. The project does not need to hit a certain internal rate of return to pay investors or lenders.

“We’re not competing to get IRR returns to go sell the buildings,” SoDo Atlanta LLC CEO Jon Birdsong, Cummings’ business partner, recently told Cushman & Wakefield’s Tim Wright on the Sunbelt Developers podcast.

Develop Fulton did recently advance a public financing plan for the first phase of the Forge Atlanta project. The authority’s board of directors voted in October to approve a $223.7 million bond inducement resolution, resulting in approximately $9.7 million in tax savings over 10 years for Webstar.

A public commenter during the Develop Fulton meeting raised questions about the accuracy of Webstar’s presentation and criticized the company’s lack of public engagement.

In its Dec. 17 news release, Webstar committed to hosting community meetings, workforce development programs and cultural events starting in 2026.

According to the news release, other companies involved in the project include:

Turner & Townsend will provide development management.
Skanska has participated in preliminary discussions and pre-construction planning as a potential general contractor, subject to the negotiation.
Skyline Engineering will provide in‑house oversight and quality control.
Kimley-Horn will serve as the lead engineer.
Nelson Worldwide will lead design.

A ceremonial groundbreaking is projected for mid-2026, and construction of the first phase is expected to last up to three years.