How Centennial Yards Will Change Downtown Atlanta Forever with Brian McGowan

In this episode of Tharon’s Take, Tharon speaks with Brian McGowan, President of Centennial Yards, about the future of downtown Atlanta.

The conversation centers around Centennial Yards and its role in transforming underutilized space into a more connected, vibrant part of the city. McGowan shares insight into the challenges and opportunities of large-scale development, and what it takes to create a downtown that works for both residents and visitors.

They also explore broader themes around growth, infrastructure, and Atlanta’s evolving identity as a major city.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Today we're joined by my good friend Brian McGowan. He's the president of Centennial Yards, one of the most ambitious developments happening in Atlanta right now. Brian has spent more than two decades working at the intersection of economic development, public policy, and global trade. He previously served as CEO of Invest Atlanta, as CEO of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, and the Atlanta Beltline. He has held leadership roles at the federal and state level, including serving as the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce in the Obama administration and Deputy Secretary of Commerce in the state of California under former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Now he's helping lead the transformation of downtown Atlanta through Centennial Yards. Centennial Yards is a multi-billion dollar redevelopment project that will reshape what many Atlantis know as the Gulch. Brian McGowan, thank you so much for being here, my friend. You know, one of the things that's interesting about doing Theron's take is that I've had so many friends over the years, and you're one of them, and you may or may not remember this. We were at the Atlanta United game, and by the way, you had great seats. And I told you, I said, you know, one day, and I think you encouraged me. You was like, hey man, you are doing so much in the community, doing so much with your clients. You should really think about um figuring out a way that we can communicate with Atlanta and the culture. Uh and so I took your advice and took your encouragement, and you know, we launched Aaron Stake. And so I am I am honored that you've taken out the time to be here today.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

I'm honored that you asked me. Again, you and I are old friends, and we've been through a lot of battles together. So I think this is amazing that you're doing this.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

And we're gonna get into some of those battles today. And one thing I would say about you, and I said this before we started, um, what job haven't you had in the city of Atlanta? Can't keep a job. Uh no, you've kept jobs, but one of the things that I've liked about your career is that you've always transitioned to bigger and better things. Not that those jobs were not significant, yeah. Um, but we're gonna get into your career in just a second. But before we go into uh things that you're doing in Atlanta and you know, your relationships with the business community, things that you're doing around development, I want you to tell our listeners and viewers about you. So I know born in the Bronx, grew up in Jersey, spent a lot of time in California, but just take us through uh your upbringing, your story, and how you got to Atlanta.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Oh wow. Um, yeah, uh born in the Bronx, immigrant family. So my mother's an Irish immigrant. My father's parents are both Irish immigrants as well. So um my grandfather uh came through Ellis Island, his name is on the wall at Ellis Island. My grandmother came through Philadelphia, and my mother came through JFK in 1963. So uh have a strong identity as an uh Irish uh American, which, you know, I think did a couple things for me. One is it gave me this great pride in being an American, you know, because my uh those people, uh my relatives left Ireland because things were not good in Ireland. So in in the 1920s, when my uh grandparents came to the US, um there was a lot of political turmoil. So there was the uh 1917 Irish Revolution, then there was 1922, 23 uh Irish Civil War, and my grandfather uh there were in the Civil War fought on the side that lost. Uh uh was uh uh a former um well, a future president of Ireland named Eamon Devilaire, who's fighting against the British forces. And and so when they lost, him and his brother came to the Bronx. That's how we ended up uh here. And my grandfather became a bus driver. He was a New York City bus driver, and my grandmother worked in Macy's. Uh and then my mother came in the 60s, similar. Uh the economy was bad. Uh, all her brothers, she's one of 10, uh, they all had to leave uh and go to the UK or even Saudi Arabia. My grandfather, her father uh was a crane operator in Saudi Arabia and basically, you know, would send the paychecks home uh because there was just no uh economic opportunity in Ireland. So I think what that did for me is one, made me proud to be an American because it's a country that provided such great opportunity for my family. Uh but it also gave me the civic-mindedness of, you know, when the Irish uh immigrate, uh they tend to become the mayors and in some cases presidents, you know, instead of uh being subject to the political whims of whoever's in charge, the Irish actually run for office and start to kind of take over, if you will.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

So how was it growing up in the Bronx? And I know you spent a lot of time in Jersey, then I want you to take us through you spent you moved to California, worked for Governor Schwarzenegger, and did a lot with the global economy, you know, global economics.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

Yeah, yeah. Um so I moved out of the Bronx. I was very young. We moved to New Jersey, and I was in New Jersey and graduated high school in Tom's River, uh, Tom's River High School East. But I I grew up in a little town called Ridgefield, New Jersey in Bergen County, just uh very close to the George Washington Bridge, very uh Italian, I would say, neighborhood. Uh, you know, all those neighborhoods back when I was growing up were very ethnic, you know, so even the neighborhoods were. So I was in a very Italian neighborhood, uh, then went to high school in Tom's River, and then when I was 18 when I graduated high school, I moved to Palm Desert, California. Um, so my uh my family had already moved there. My parents had moved there. It was my junior year, the end of my junior year. I stayed in New Jersey and finished high school, didn't want to start a new high school in Palm Desert, California. But I'm one of seven, so the the whole family moved. Wow. Uh yeah, I'm number three uh of the seven. Um and so that was like landing on Mars for a kid from New Jersey. You land in Palm Desert, California. You know, it's palm trees and sun and moon mountains and all the uh all the different things that New Jersey just didn't have. Um but but that kind of started to I think open my eyes, but I wasn't college bound. I think a lot of people assume um, you know, like you probably went to college right out of high school. Um I did not. Uh so I graduated high school and we grew up uh not affluent. We were in fact poor and on food stamps. And um, and I think it wasn't until later in my senior year I started realizing that uh that's why we took the SATs. You had to apply to college. Like nobody actually guided me in like the process of getting into college. So so here I am, 18, 19 years old in uh Southern California, and uh not going to college. All my friends are going to college, and you know, you have to go get a job. And so first job I got in California was a laborer for a construction company. So I did that for a year.

unknown 6:43

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

Uh and what that taught me was excuse me, is that that's uh not the way I want to live my life. It was really hard. It's 120, 125 degrees in the Coachella Valley uh during the summers. And my job was to load up the trucks, and it was a finished carpentry company, and then I had to stock all the units, and then I was a base layer, and I did that for a year, and um that encouraged me to go to school. So I went to community college. So that was a good thing. And this was like two years out of graduate? It was the I mean uh within a year of graduating high school, I was working as a laborer. Yeah, in Southern Captain. A year later you you went school. Yeah, then I enrolled at uh College of the Desert in Palm Desert, California, and I got my and I ended up becoming I was student body president there and started getting my confidence and then transferred to the University of California Riverside.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

You know, one thing about this podcast, man, when I bring folks in I've known for a long time, I never knew a lot of this uh your story. Yeah. Yeah. You also did um some work in China on it. Yeah, international trade.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

Yes. Yeah. When I was uh working for the city of Ontario, California. So my first job out of college, I worked for the city of Palm Springs, California, because I was living in the Coachella. I've never been to Palm Springs. I've always wanted to. Oh no, you gotta go to the Coach. I'm definitely not hit you up when I get ready to go. Absolutely. Um so I I did an internship with the city of Palm Springs and it turned into a job. But Sonny Bono was our congressman and former mayor when I was when I was there. Um but the job after that, I worked for the city of Ontario, California. Okay. Do you want to talk about Sonny? No, I'm not sure. No, go ahead. Yeah, yeah. Anyway. Uh when I was working for the city of Ontario, California, I created a trade mission program where so I was working for the Department of Economic Development. My job was really the primary part of my job was business retention and expansion. So helping, you know, existing businesses uh stay and grow and create jobs in Ontario, California. And um one of the ways you do that is by exporting, you know, so helping companies export. At that time, you know, China was this emerging market with amazing, huge opportunities. And so uh we put together a trade mission program and started taking small businesses from Ontario, California to China to find business partners. And so uh, in fact, there was an article, the New York Times wrote an article about the program, which I'm very proud of because I was so young in my career, and the New York Times is writing an article about something I created. But the name of the article was Trade Missions That Do More Than Just See the Great Wall, long title. Um, but why I would when I would interview companies, I would say, if you want to see the Great Wall of China, don't come with us. Because ours is not uh where we're gonna work you to death. Like you're not gonna have time to do anything else. It's uh yeah, it's a real trade mission, not a trade mission, as they say, or a junket. This these were business focused trade missions.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

So did you work for the former Governor Schwarzenegger, or did you all just have like a No, what what happened?

SPEAKER_01 9:41

So that that that's how it got connected. So I the so this trade mission program, I think I did I probably did five or six. And uh then Governor Schwarzenegger was elected, and shortly after he was elected, um the governor's office decided to do a trade mission to China. And so they called the city manager I was working for and said, Hey, you have a guy over there that knows how to do trade missions. Can we borrow him to support the governor's trade mission? And so the city manager said, Of course. And so for about two months, I was working with uh the governor's staff to create this trade mission. And I ended up going with him, and that's how I got to know Arnold Schwarzenegger was on this trade mission.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

So where I first heard your name was when you were working for the U.S. Department of Commerce as the deputy assistant secretary uh to the U.S. Department of Commerce. Take us through that. That was during the Obama administration. And also, I think you developed a good relationship with former vice president and former president Joe Biden as well.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Yeah, I did. I did. Um, I was working for Arnold Schwarzenegger when Barack Obama got elected. So I I wasn't part of the campaign, I didn't do anything. I was so focused on my job, the fifth largest economy in the world. Um and uh, but I I was working, uh I was living in Southern California, working in Sacramento. So I fly up to Sacramento every few days and typically would stay at a hotel. The hotel was called the Citizen Hotel, it was very close to my office, and it was the inauguration of Barack Obama's inauguration. I was like, I want to go to my room and watch it on TV with no distraction. Because you know, at that point I was like, this guy's gonna be president, I want to understand more who he is. And and during that speech, he said something that really hit me hard, which was something along the lines that I should Google it. Uh, do you want to grow up, do you want your children to grow up in a world where America is no longer number one, where China's number one, or another country's number one? And me being an economic developer and a proud American, I was like, no, yeah, I don't want that. And I always figured at some point in my career I would work in Washington, D.C. And I said, you know, this is the moment. You know, I need to figure out how to be a presidential appointee. Had no clue how to do it. And uh I go back to my office, and um Eloisa Klementec was working for me. Eloisa is the CEO of InvestAtlanta, and and I was like, who do you know that might know somebody in the Obama administration? And she pulls out a piece of paper and we start doing like a bubble diagram of who we know that might know somebody that might know somebody that might know somebody and attached to the Obama administration or campaign at the time. And something worked. I met with oh, probably a dozen different people and uh sort of gave up on it, you know, after eight months, didn't hear anything. Uh, but those there was like 500,000 resumes for these jobs, and those jobs, they're they're in the plumb book, you know, the plumb book in Washington, D.C. That's what they tell you to look at when you're gonna be able to get the job. The plum jobs are fake book. And typically those jobs like the one I ended up in go to, you know, people who've donated the campaign or worked on the campaign or somehow directly related to the campaign. And so I get a call out of the blue to if I uh could fly to Washington, D.C. the following week to meet with the uh the newly um uh confirmed Secretary of Commerce, Gary Locke. And so I flew there, interviewed with him and got the job.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

And then I remember vividly former mayor of Kasim Ree, who I ran his campaign in 2009, and we were in his office. I was there with Pierre Eyman and Doria uh Faruqi and Signal. All these folks, and and um he specifically said, Hey, we need to find someone to come and run um Invest Atlanta. But how long were you in that position as the Deputy Assistant Secretary?

SPEAKER_01 13:28

I was I was there for three years. Um and one of those years, I was I was detailed to the White House uh during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. So uh Secretary Locke approached me and asked me an odd question, uh, which was the White House is looking for somebody to lead the economic solutions team, the National Incident Command to respond to the Deepwater Horizon spill. Is that something you'd be interested in doing? We would detail you to the White House. You'd come back when you're done. And I asked him, I go, Well, what is that? And he said, Well, I don't know, but I need an answer right now. So it was one of those things where I was like, I I don't know what this is, but I said yes. I was like, sure, I'll do it. And uh so I ended up doing that for almost a year, I think it was 10 months, um, super intense. And I think that's where Mayor Reed may have heard my name because I was running this big interagency effort across uh across all federal government to basically mitigate the economic impacts of the oil spill for uh people along the Gulf from Galveston, Texas to Bay County, Florida, this huge, huge geography. And um, so I got to meet a lot of people through that process. It was an extraordinary uh experience in my life, actually.

SPEAKER_00 14:41

So I think a lot of us we credit you for being an integral part of shaping Atlanta's future, um, its infrastructure and its vision. So now you meet Mary, you come, you run Invest Atlanta, and that's when we first met. That's right. Yeah. And so tell us about that experience and then take us through transitioning to the Belt Line. Yeah, sure. And then I think you also did the Metro Chamber. Yeah, yeah. And then you left and went to Seattle. I did. And now you've come back. Yeah, but take take our view as a business through the top. I'll try to do this in some sort of consultant. No, but I think it's interesting because that's why I started the podcast off saying, like, what job haven't you? And it's no disrespect, it's really a compliment because if you when you tell this story, you look at these positions, it's gonna duck tail right into what we're gonna be talking about regarding Sintino Yards.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Yeah, I you know, uh at that point in my career, I I mean, it's more, I think, just who I am. I I'm very interested in fixing broken things or creating something. Yeah, I'm a foul to fix or or or creating something new. And uh I'm not so interested in kind of just jumping into the seat of the person before me and pressing the same buttons they pressed the day before. I kind of I want to create my own machine and my own seat and create my own buttons. I I enjoy that more. Um, so I took the job. Uh I left the administration. I didn't want to leave the administration, but I have five children. And my wife was doing the bills one day and uh she looked a little upset. Uh and I met your wife, I don't know. I said, What's happen, what's wrong, honey? And she goes, We got to decide which car payment we're not making this month. Uh and because we had uh uh two two sons in college at the time, and uh as you know, those jobs don't pay a lot. Um so you you really are sacrificing for your country when you take jobs like that. You're and you gotta live in Washington, D.C., which is expensive. Very expensive. Yeah, yeah. So it was like, okay, the party's over, I gotta go get a real job. Um and then I had friends in the White House who who knew this new young up-and-coming rising star mayor in Atlanta, and he's looking for somebody to run his economic development agency, you should consider it. So I threw my hat in the ring and uh ended up interviewing and getting the job. And I think I was on the job for about probably three weeks when I finally got all the financial information for the organization. It was called the Atlanta Development Authority at the time. I renamed it Invest Atlanta, I'll tell you why. Um, and I get all the information and I'm able to kind of look at it all together. I I had been asking for that information during the my interview process, but I, you know, they I didn't get it all. And I I quickly concluded it was insolvent. Like the organization was insolvent. And so I sent it to a couple of people. Who was your predecessor at that time?

SPEAKER_00 17:30

You remember who do who did you uh success?

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Oh I I forget. Oh, we get it. I forget her name. Yeah. Who was it? I'm trying to remember. But I mean it wasn't her fault, it was it was a recession that really kind of the in uh the Atlanta Development Development Authority had taken some loans to develop some uh uh sites for uh uh neighborhoods and uh and couldn't pay the loans back. And so this that's the definition of insolvent when you can't pay a loan that you borrowed money on. Um so learned that it was insolvent, wasn't pleased about that, uh, because I left this great job, and the chair of our finance committee specifically told me that we were not insolvent because I asked her that during my interview process. Uh so I was a little annoyed. And later I asked her, I said, So we were insolvent. Why didn't you tell me that? She goes, Well, you wouldn't have taken the job. I was like, Okay. Uh and at that point I was I was frustrated, but I I talked to my father every single morning. I call him every morning, and uh I was telling him about all this, and I was so frustrated. And he goes, Brian, that's the job. The job is to fix that. Like I came here thinking my job was to do economic development. My job was to fix the economic development agency for the for the city of Atlanta, and uh which kind of changed my mindset. So instead of being frustrated and uh angry and uh I left this great job and the Obama administration, etc., it became a a a challenge, which I like a good challenge. It's like I'm gonna fix this, you know. Uh and so we negotiated the debt and uh you know the organization just had a lack of confidence as well. You know, like I remember my first week on the job, I'm walking down the hallway and I'm saying hello to people, and people would literally divert their eyes from you know I'd say hi and they'd look away. It was just a it was like a defeated organization. They didn't believe in themselves. And and so I knew we had to we had to change the culture. And the way you change a culture is you you create a new vision, mission, core values. There's probably some leadership that needs to be uh relieved of their duties, and and we did that. Uh and then we renamed it to Invest Atlanta because the Atlanta Development Authority had almost a negative connotation. Uh it's also scary. I tell people the Atlanta Development Authority, or uh people call it the ADA, if you remember. I remember Americans with Disability Act or American Dental Association. Like it people weren't associating ADA with an economic development growth organization. So the the mayor let me change the name. So we changed the name, we created a new logo and branding, vision, mission, core values. We moved from underground to the Georgia Pacific building again, just to kind of give the organization some confidence.

SPEAKER_00 20:13

That was one of the new state-of-the-art offices. Yeah. You guys really invested in the technology, the glass doors. Yeah, we wanted to. You open it up, no one was like siloed. I remember your office was, you know, in kind of in the like it wasn't secluded, yeah, off to the side. I mean, you guys had everyone kind of working together. It definitely felt better.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

Yeah, definitely. And it was, you know, it's hard to sell a global city. Like, you know, we we we talk about Atlanta as a global city, and we're all of this and all that, and uh, and you can't do that from the offices that I had, you know. Um as a matter of fact, one day we had a it was an Irish delegation of elected officials, in fact, and and they were we were at underground. I remember they parked, and I was looking out my window, I could see them coming in, and it was we were right next to a police substation, and they were doing a prisoner transfer at the time. So there were all these, you know, uh uh arrestees were lined up along the sidewalk handcuffed while this Irish delegation looking to invest in Atlanta was uh was coming into our front door. And I think that was the revelation that you can't sell uh a city like Atlanta from a location like that. We need a corporate location to kind of image is a big part of why companies uh want to invest in a place. And so so we moved and long story short, we we corrected all the problems and now Invest Atlanta is an amazing organization doing amazing things with an amazing leader.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

And when what did when did uh Dr. Eloisa Klementec come to Atlanta? You brought her to Atlanta with you.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Yeah, so so Eloisa first worked for me when I ran the Economic Development Agency for the County of San Bernardino in California. And then I went into the Schwarzenegger administration and I hired her. Then I went to the Department of Commerce and I pulled her there. And then when I came here, I I I brought her in. So she She probably came about a year after I got here, probably in 2012.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

Well, shout out to Eloisa. We're gonna have to get her on the Darren Stake. 100%. Um but she's the current CEO in one of the events atlanta. All right, so now where do you go next?

SPEAKER_01 22:13

Yeah, so uh the after the organization was fixed, I I'm one of those people I I get bored quickly, it's not necessarily a good thing. Uh, but the as I said earlier, the job for me was to fix it, not to run it. You know, so once it was fixed and operating better uh well, uh I kind of felt like it was time to move on and do something else. So I went to the Metro Atlanta Chamber. Uh they had just hired a new CEO. Um she came from the private sector, and I had all this economic development experience. We all know the Metro Atlanta Chamber has a great economic development team. So I went in there as the executive vice president, chief operating officer, and ran the economic development team there for a couple of years. All right. Then you leave there. I I left there and I went to Denton's for a couple of years. Yeah, yeah, Denton's. I went to a law for the yeah. We had that conversation. I'm not a lawyer. Yeah, me neither.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

But it had a really good non-lawyer partner structure there. And I remember you transitioned there, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

And a great public policy practice. And the the greatest thing about that job for me was uh it was nice to be uh out of the spotlight for a minute. You know, like all the jobs I have had were just such high profile. It was nice to kind of be the person behind the scenes for a minute. Uh, but that wore out for after a minute where I did miss being in the spotlight and I did miss leading an organization and being the CEO of an organization. So I was I was happily in that job though, and I get a call from I was mountain biking, I remember, uh, and I get a call from uh Mayor Reed. My phone rings, it says Cassine Reed, you pull off the bike and you try to catch your breath, and you know, hello, Mr. Mayor, and and he says, uh, uh, would you be interested in being the CEO of uh the Beltline? I said, I have to make a change. The Beltline at that time was failing to deliver on its affordable housing um goals. Not it wasn't even kind of reaching them, even in a in a small way. And um, so there was a big uh expose in the AJC on the front page, and it was uh very controversial. And the the mayor would call it a death by a thousand cuts. He's like, We we're gonna have to make a change here. Would you be interested in taking the job? And I said, I said, yes, but I'll only do it for one year because I'm gonna go in and I'm gonna have to shake things up a bit. Um, and I I'm not interested in running the belt line, I'm interested in fixing the belt line. So so I went there for it was uh 11 months. Um Clyde Higgs, their current CEO, is remarkable. That's another guest you should have. Yeah. Um, was my COO at the time. And uh and we fixed it. You know, we we really refocused resources, uh, number one on affordable housing. Um my goal was to make sure that the project was moving along fast. Uh I think my predecessor uh I don't think really had full view of this is these are not permanent jobs. In fact, one of my first all-hands meetings at the Beltline, I reminded everybody that it's our job to work ourselves out of a job. The tads expire. At some point, we're all gonna have to move on. We build this and we move on. And I think that really shook everybody up a little bit, you know, because I don't think people were thinking about that. They I think they thought it, thought of it as a government department, you know, it was just gonna exist forever. And it was like, no, we need to move. We need to move faster, we need to be pouring concrete and doing ribbon cuttings constantly. Uh, we also needed to acquire the rest of the property to finish the loop, which hadn't been fully acquired. So that year I focused on acquiring all the available corridors, new vision, mission, core value. Uh again, same thing. Some people probably don't fit into that new vision that I just outlined for the belt line about we got to work ourselves out of a job. So some of those people needed to leave. We hired new people, and then I felt like my job was done. Um and Clyde was the perfect next leader to kind of take that whole organization to the next level. But it was at that time where I get a call from the former Secretary of Commerce, uh, Gary Locke, uh, who at the time uh was the after commerce secretary, he was U.S. ambassador to China. Uh, and he called along with uh the governor of the state of Washington, he was the he was the governor of the state of Washington, and there was a governor after him called her name was Christine Gregoire. And they called me and said we want to create a new economic development corporation for the Seattle region. So a brand new economic development organization. Is that something you'd be interested in? And the answer was yeah, I'd be fascinated. Like to create a brand new economic development organization for a region like Seattle, which arguably is the strongest metropolitan metropolitan economy in in the uh country. I was intrigued by that whole opportunity. So I I went and did that. So created uh it's called Greater Seattle Partners. It represents the entire region. And uh again, once it was created and solidified, I actually told them I said, I'll give you three years. I signed a three-year contract and I filled fulfilled my obligation and um and got that organization launched.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

So we've had um Andrew Salzman over here from the Atlanta Hawks. Amazing people. We've had William Pate on from the Atlanta Convention and Visits Bureau, and of course, Dan Corso from the Atlanta Sports Council. All three of those individuals talk about Centen and OER. Yes, yeah. And we have made sure that they give you the credit where credit deserves. So now we're gonna transition and talk about this amazing project. But before we start talking about the project in its current state, I want you to take our viewers and listeners back to the whole idea of what was originally called the development to do something with the gulch. Yeah, the gulch. The gulch. And I remember it all started under the Reed administration. Mayor Bottoms comes in, she takes it from there. And as you said earlier, when we started this podcast, we have been in some battles together and we've won. But really quickly, take our listeners through what Centennial we are, just the concept, the vision, uh, the idea, how it came about, and then take us into where we are now.

SPEAKER_01 28:30

Yeah, happy to. Um so the origin story that I share is Tony Ressler, private equity billionaire from Los Angeles, bought the Atlanta Hawks back about 11 years ago now. And Steve Kuhnin, the president of the Hawks, tells the story because he was there. But uh Tony made the decision standing in the arena to buy the Hawks. Uh Tony walks out to the front of the arena. If you can imagine all the Atlantans, he's standing on the viaduct in front of the arena. He steps up on the running board of his SUV to take him back to his plane. He looks over the top of the SUV into the hole in the ground across the street. He turns to Steve and says, What's that? Uh and Steve says, uh, that's the gulch. And Tony, being from LA, says, What's a gulch? And Steve says, That's where people tailgate. Um, not a great answer, but the right answer. That's what was pretty much. Yeah, he just goes to be very narrow. It's the gulch, you know, uh, where people tailgate. And Tony said, I want LA Live there. So LA Live was really one of our country's first uh large-scale, uh I wouldn't say first, first modern uh sports entertainment, sports adjacent entertainment district. Um, downtown LA, it was staple center at the time, it's now crypto arena, and there was a convention center. It was a bunch of parking lots around it, and that was it. It was a bad part of downtown LA. It was a place where you didn't go unless you were there for a game or concert, similar to our downtown. Um, and so that was the inspiration. I want to be clear with your listeners that we are not building LA Live. This is much different, it's much bigger, it's it's mixed use, and ours is gonna be way better than LA Live. Oh, I believe you. I see, I see, I see it all coming. But that was the inspiration. So Tony um has a brother named Richard Wrestler. So he calls Richard. Richard is the chairman and founder of CIM Group. CIM Group is another large company based out of Los Angeles, real estate investment company. Uh uh does a lot of things, but one of the things it does is development and develops difficult urban sites and projects all over the United States. And so he called his brother. Brother came out and started the process of acquisition and trying to figure out how do you develop a site that honestly had been passed over at least a dozen times according to the AJC over the last hundred years. Uh, and it was passed over because the site's very difficult to develop. There's easements and air rights, there were 12 different owners. Uh, every government and agency seemed to own a remnant parcel over the last hundred years. So you can imagine how difficult it is. All the yeah, active rail and there's a Marta tunnel running through it. So you can, you know, most real estate companies would walk away and go, you know what, this is this is too difficult. But the biggest issue was there's no infrastructure because this is where Atlanta was founded. So it was rail yards. So rail yards don't have the the infrastructure to support a mixed-use development of this size. There's no water, there's no sewer, there's no power, and there's no roads. Um and because the rail yards, when they were there, and people know the history of Atlanta, the the city built viaducts over their the the rail uh yards because downtown would have been congested and you couldn't move around. Um and so those when the rail yards went away, the viaducts stayed in place, which are 40 feet in the air. So you have to build everything on stilts up to the level of the viaducts. So it's a very expensive type of construction. And that's why I think a lot of developers would look at it and say, we'll pass.

SPEAKER_00 32:04

So you say it's go time, we're gonna do it. And now take us through how the state, the city, all the local municipalities, the multi-jurisdictional uh movement that it took with the bonds and the infrastructure and all that.

SPEAKER_01 32:18

And and I want to be clear, I I was uh I I joked that I was born on third base because uh I I got here at the end of that very difficult sausage making process. You and others were involved in lobbying because there there was there's a state incentive, so state legislation had to be passed and the governor had to sign it, and then there's a local incentive, which is a property tax rebate uh that had to go through city council, it was controversial. Uh there were lawsuits challenging it, it went up to the Georgia Supreme Court. Uh, and you know, those lawsuits failed. And uh and then we had to sign a development agreement with the with the city that was under the bottoms administration. That's a document about this thick and very expensive document, considering how many lawyers created that document. Well, a lot of lawyers made a lot of money watching it. Oh my God. I think everybody, which as you know, can be dragged out because of that at times. But but we got it done. And um, you know, it got done under the bottoms administration. It was a very, very difficult process. I think we landed in the right place. Uh, you know, there it essentially a development agreement is a uh a community development uh plan. So it's a uh a partnership between the community about we're gonna give you incentives and you're gonna do these other things for us. And so some of those things are uh 20% of all the units we build will be affordable at 80% of area median income for 99 years. So we're gonna build, and I should maybe even set up the vision for Centelia. Centelia Arts is 50 acres, so it's an enormous piece of property. Uh, it's a$5 billion project. Uh, we're gonna build two to 3,000 apartments, 900,000 square feet of retail, 1.2 million square feet of office, and 1,500 hotel rooms. So truly a mixed-use neighborhood, like a brand new neighborhood. There's gonna be two, three thousand people, uh, apartments. So that's 5,000 people living in this, you know, uh very visible, very uh center stage neighborhood for Atlanta. Um so there were community benefits that were negotiated. One was the affordable housing, another is um we have a 38% minority female business enterprise goal. So we are the general contractor. So the buildings that are under construction right now, we've created a construction company, we're building those ourselves. So we're not just the owner, we're we're the the builder as well, which is unusual. Typically, uh an owner will hire a GC, but we decided to do that ourselves. Um and now the project is rolling along and we're spending money. So 38% of all the money we spend are with minority female business enterprises. And we have these extraordinary stories of small businesses that typically would never have gotten an opportunity to do work on a project this large because they didn't have the right experience, they didn't have the appropriate insurance coverage, et cetera. We were able to bring in some of these smaller businesses and give them their first shot. Uh and now uh now they're growing. We have these amazing stories of uh this one contractor to uh did some of the roofing on our buildings. Um he told me and my wife, he says, my wife and I own this business and we were operating it out of a closet in our apartment. And we now we just bought a building, we have 120 employees. So these kind of and he and he just got the they just got the uh contract to do the roofing for the National Civil Civil Uh uh uh rights museum in downtown Atlanta as well. And the reason why they were able to get that is they could say, well, we did a job for centenniards, and so it gave those folks confidence that he could deliver.

SPEAKER_00 35:53

When do you think uh what is your projected date of everything's gonna be finished? The centennial yards.

SPEAKER_01 35:59

Yeah, I always tell people it depends on who you ask. Uh, you know, uh I I'm I work for people who are impatient and want to move very quickly, but there's physics and concrete has to dry, is what I tell people. I I would say the entire project is complete by 2032, 2033. That like the entire 50 acres is built. Now that's a that's a any developers who are listening or watching this kind of rolling their eyes right now because that's a that's a lot. Uh everything you see under complete or under construction now represents less than 25% of uh what we're gonna build. So we're we're just getting started. That's the the message I really want people to understand is after 10 years of you know, nothing happening, and then now you're seeing a bunch of construction cranes and new buildings. And uh, you know, I I noticed even when you drive down Centennial Olympic Park Drive, the view is different. Suddenly there's buildings and there's something to see, uh, which just beginning. We're just at the the initial stages of this project.

SPEAKER_00 36:55

What are you guys doing to make sure that um with the recent announcements and the future announcements of hotels, misuse development, retail, um, restaurants, what are you doing to make sure that you are promoting and retaining the Atlanta culture? Yeah, such a great question.

SPEAKER_01 37:12

So we actually have a number of um celebrity investors, uh Usher and Two Chains and Quavo and Andy Young and uh a long list of very interesting. Killer Mike is an investor. He he listens. I don't want him to feel like he's amazing. But you know, the interesting story about Killer Mike is the first time I met him, uh I I was with Mayor uh Dickens at the time, and uh Mike outlined all of it's a very complicated structure, and he's he he knew everything about it. Like he he almost knew more than I was new in this job, he knew more about it than I did. And I asked him, I got how do you know so much about this? He goes, I was trying, I was selling it through the city council. I was down there selling it and knocking on doors and meeting with city council people and gaining votes for that for that process.

SPEAKER_00 38:01

I remember seeing him down there.

SPEAKER_01 38:02

It's absolutely amazing.

SPEAKER_00 38:04

So, how has it been with Ambassador Young at the age of 93? Yeah. Being one of your top investors, and I saw you guys came together with the Phoenix Hotel opening.

SPEAKER_01 38:12

We opened the Phoenix Hotel, he was there. Um, we actually took him on a tour of the Mitchell, which is another building, an apartment building we just completed Friday.

SPEAKER_00 38:20

I saw the sign went up recently. That's that's nice.

SPEAKER_01 38:22

Yep, that building is already it's 304 apartments, leasing up very well. We've we've leased about 120 apartments in three months, which is extraordinary. Uh, and also an affirmation that people do want to live in downtown Atlanta. Um, but Andy said something to us, which kind of brought us to our knees. He was in our office, which overlooks the site, and uh he's looking out the window, and he had puts his hand on his heart like this. And uh I get closer to him. I'm like, oh, he's about to say something. And he goes, This has been the hole in my heart since I was mayor. The whole the 50-acre hole in downtown Atlanta. And Bridget Broyard and I, uh, my my colleague, we kind of looked at each other and felt the weight of the world. Like, we got to fill the hole in Andy's heart. We gotta, we gotta do it now. We gotta go. Um and Bridget does great work for you. Bridget's amazing. Yeah, uh, I have such a great team. The whole team is amazing. Like, I I always joke, I almost have to be careful what I tell them to do because they're gonna do it. Meaning, like, you got to really think about like uh I have uh the head of construction, or his name is Brandon Dexter, and we had to chop off a big chunk of the CNN deck. And uh we were pushing towards this date in order to make room for the entertainment district. And we were all out there one day, and he he was standing on the piece that we were gonna chop off. It was a huge chunk, uh, it's like a big triangular piece, and he goes, So next week this will all be gone, he said. You know, my blood pressure went right up to the room. I was like, wait a minute, is it is this really what we want to do? Like the there's such a great team, but the reason why they're so good at what they're doing is we have a lot of people that left jobs to workforce in Tennel Yards because of how transformational and meaningful it is. All these people can get jobs building buildings anywhere in Atlanta, but they wanted to be a part of building a community and doing something that's transformational. It's literally going to change the way people interact with Atlanta and see Atlanta as they come from uh all over the world to visit our great city. So one of our investors is Usher, and Usher is an active investor. He shows up, he cares a lot. We all know he loves Atlanta, and I'd argue he personifies Atlanta probably better than anybody. And he and I talk a lot, and he's very creative, and he's very interesting, and and he he's been helping us really think about how do we make sure that Atlanta uh is true to Atlanta. You know, that I mean Centennials is true to Atlanta. So we want to make sure, uh, as I tell people, if you're sitting in the middle of Centennial Yards when it's all built, and you're looking around and seeing things that you could see in any city in America, we failed. So it needs to be uniquely Atlanta. Unique to Atlanta means our our food and culture and art, uh, the retailers that you're seeing is not a mix of retailers and art and culture that or uh music that you would could get in any other city in America. It's you could only get that combination of things here in Atlanta. Uh and so we're being very intentional about that. Um as you mentioned, uh Busy B. Uh, we signed a lease with uh with Busy B. We're thrilled by that, obviously. Are they gonna keep the current location? They are. Okay, so you're gonna have two locations. Yep. And you also got chops. And we got chops, which was a big story. I I think, you know, uh again, it just iconic Atlanta restaurants. Uh we have a lot more coming. Uh so we're in negotiations with a number of other iconic Atlanta restaurants. Uh but the point is that when people come to Centennial Yards, where no matter where they're from, uh, you know, they they can go get their comfort food at Shake Shack if that's what they need. But if you want to experience Atlanta culture and who we are, there's Busy B and Chops, and there'll be other Atlanta iconic restaurants and establishments in Centennial Yards. So it'll be a nice mix of uh kind of nationally known names like the Live Nations and the Cosms and things like that with Atlanta cultural institutions as well.

SPEAKER_00 42:20

Well, I had dinner at the um Hotel Phoenix uh this week, and to be able to sit in that restaurant and look right across and look at Mercedes-Benz Stadium and then State Farm was a pretty amazing. All right, Brian, so we're gonna go to our segment, um, and you're the first to go through this. We've named it final take. Okay. Um it's Theron's take and then this final take. So we're gonna ask you some questions. Okay. Just real quick um answers. And so the first question is Um Here we go. Uh, favorite place in Atlanta to take out-of-town visitors.

SPEAKER_01 42:52

Oh, great question. Um So when my mother, Irish mother, first came to Atlanta for the first time, um, I said, Mom, where do you want to go? And she said, Ebenezer Church. And the reason for that is that people don't if they if you know Irish history, the Irish had their own civil rights issues for you know 800 years with the British. So there's a kinship, I think, uh, with the Irish and the black uh experience in America. Um, so I take people to Ebenezer and and the museum. That's the first place I take people.

SPEAKER_00 43:27

Out of the jobs that you had in Atlanta, which one was your favorite? Oh my God.

unknown 43:32

I have to do that.

SPEAKER_01 43:32

I know the one you have now is your favorite, but I was gonna say I was gonna say uh uh centen yards, of course, but I I would say Invest Atlanta. It just it's such an amazing organization, and to be part of the fixing of it and knowing the extraordinary impact that Invest Atlanta has throughout this entire city to be a a part of that history is uh something I'm very proud of.

SPEAKER_00 43:55

Favorite Atlanta restaurant?

SPEAKER_01 43:58

Oh, my favorite Atlanta restaurant. That is a fantastic question. Um, it's currently Zephyr, which is the restaurant in our new hotel, Hotel Phoenix. And I say that because I have breakfast, lunch, and dinner there every day. But we have a a Michelin-starred chef who curated the menu and the food for that restaurant. So it really is a great restaurant. I encourage people to go there.

SPEAKER_00 44:19

I think I know the answer to this question because I'm looking at your guns uh and looking at that nice you know vest. But I'm gonna ask the question Favorite way to stay active outside of work?

SPEAKER_01 44:29

Oh, for me, it's mountain biking. Yeah, I love to mountain bike. It's a uh it's mental health for me. I don't think about it as physical health if that's a that's a byproduct. But that and going to the gym. I I I I go to the gym, I put a hat down, I have my earphones in, and it's a way I go every evening. Yeah, after work I go every evening.

SPEAKER_00 44:47

Man, I wish I could be like you. In the evenings, I gotta be in these streets and I gotta be these dinners, cigar places, and wine.

SPEAKER_01 44:53

Well, you know, it working for Arnold really kind of uh uh made me understand how important your health is. And uh whenever you traveled with the governor, he kind of expected you to be in the gym with him in the morning at 6 a.m. And if you weren't there, he'd make your day miserable. But I once complained, I go, you know, I don't I don't have time. I'm you know I'm working. And he goes, I'm the governor of California, I have time to go to the gym. Like you can find time.

SPEAKER_00 45:18

One city in the world Atlanta should learn from.

SPEAKER_01 45:22

Oh, that's a great question. I I'll say Seattle, in that um, I lived there for only three years. It's a great city. Uh, this is a better city. I this is my home. Um, but they're they're really good at uh at transit and transportation. Uh so they have you know big highways that get congested like ours do. It's a very dense uh region, it's four million people. Ours is about six million people. Um but they're building light rail everywhere, and they have um they have uh uh BRT on all the freeways, all the highways, they have bike lanes everywhere that are fully protected bike lanes. So as our region grows, and I'm saying this is the former CEO of the beltline, uh, we should be thinking about transit all the time. Like if we care about economic growth and economic inequality as we say we do, the way you solve those problems or keep our economy growing at the rate it's growing is you have to be able to move people, information, and goods. And right now we're struggling with moving people, and that's only gonna get worse. So transit is something we can learn from Seattle about.

SPEAKER_00 46:25

Well, thank you so much for being on the show today. Um please tell our listeners and viewers how they can get involved with Centennial Yards.

SPEAKER_01 46:31

Um centenalyards.com and follow us on social media. Uh there's so many great announcements happening almost now. Feels like every month we're announcing another restaurant or another great thing that's happening. Cosm just announced their uh you can buy tickets at Cosm. They'll be open in in June for World Cup, uh, which is like the sphere in Vegas, but shrunk down inside of a building and for watching sports. So lots great, lots more great announcements around those things.

SPEAKER_00 46:56

Well, man, listen, keep up the great work. Um I've known you for a long time. I see the hard work, the investments that you guys are making into downtown. Amazing. And we didn't talk about the World Cup, uh, which I know is going to be a big monumental moment for Centennial Yards. But I really appreciate you coming on, man. And definitely keep us updated. Anytime. Thank you for watching and listening to Therrence Take. Please follow us on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok. And wherever you get your podcast, please download Therrence Take. Share with a friend and drop a rating.