South Downtown Atlanta getting a facelift ahead of the FIFA World Cup

ATLANTA — Food and family go hand-in-hand for Tana Bhamaraniyama, who goes by the nickname Bank. The Atlanta native co-owns Tyde Tate Kitchen in South Downtown, just minutes from Mercedes-Benz Stadium. He and several other family members run the restaurant that sits next to Spiller Park Coffee.

“We’ve done everything you can think of: cook, clean, somebody needs to scrub the toilet? That’s us. Prepping, serving, bartending, sushi,” Bhamaraniyama said. “We wanted to kind of be a jumpstart to something that was forgotten.”

The area carries with it decades of blight and concern, but it didn’t always used to be that way according to Jon Birdsong. 

Birdsong is the CEO of SoDo Atlanta, a holding company of ten city blocks, 16 acres and more than 50 historic buildings in South Downtown Atlanta.

“Perception of safety is a massive challenge,” Birdsong said. “It’s not as well lit, there’s not as many businesses, and we’re doing everything we can to fix that.” 

Rather than boarded buildings and other signs of abandonment, there’s now an uptick in cranes and construction, along with new shops and more people walking down wider sidewalks. It’s a sign investment is growing and businesses are buying into a new vision.

“These buildings have been forgotten for so long, they were even forgotten to be torn down,” Birdsong said. “So now we’re taking these unpolished jewels, adding a little shine to them and really turning it into a startup district wrapped around unique boutique and local retail and, of course the most important piece, housing.”

To spur change downtown, SoDo Atlanta is turning to Northspyre to drive more efficient development through data and automation. Northspyre CEO William Sankey said the company helps condense hours of paperwork with hundreds of vendors. 

“That could take 30 to 40% of the mindshare and time and focus managing complexity,” Sankey said. “They want to focus more on the strategic direction of the project. Now, this really unlocks them to create better places, create places that are more dynamic and can accommodate more tenants, build more buildings at a cost that’s more predictable.”

Sankey said the end result of using data and automation to speed up projects is that there will be more jobs available sooner to those who need them. Downtown has already begun a transformation through the Centennial Yards project and other developments like the Signia Hilton.

Bhamaraniyama calls Downtown the heartbeat of the city. After opening up his family’s first restaurant in West Midtown, he said he took a chance on the downtown location to pioneer a new opportunity for growth.

“When you looked around this area, it was always dark, cold, and the ambience wasn’t there,” Bhamaraniyama said. “It’s kind of eerie. I think that’s one thing we’re still fighting through, but it’s getting better. Everybody needs a little jolt in the heart sometimes. Downtown is like the heart, and they need it to be brought up and alive again.”