Coke Puts 20-Acre Development on Back Burner

ATLANTA-Coca-Cola Co. is in no hurry to develop a speculated retail-residential-entertainment village venture on part of its valuable 20-acre Downtown vacant site. Instead, Coke plans to create a green space, park-like ambiance at the site, brokers in a position to know tell GlobeSt.com.Local developers won’t formally say it but they are disappointed over Coke’s decision to hold off developing a commercial project on the prime tract between the north end of Centennial Olympic Park and Alexander Street. They had hoped Coke’s project would be a magnet for their own planned undertakings in the area of the planned $200-million, 250,000-sf Georgia Aquarium and the estimated 500,000-sf, $250-million new World of Coke Museum. The aquarium is scheduled to open in 2005; the museum in 2006. The aquarium will be constructed on nine of the 20 acres that Coke donated for the project.

Coke’s parcel is next to the aquarium and the new museum site. That’s where local developers Integral Group and Larry Gellerstedt plan multi-million-dollar projects. Integral’s drawing board shows condominiums, an office tower and a supermarket as potential projects. Gellerstedt plans a retail and residential venture across the road from Coke’s tract.Area brokers intimate with city politics and local corporate maneuverings tell GlobeSt.com Coke hopes the planned green space will impress local residents who would support Coke’s later developments on the site. Ground-breaking on the new Coke museum is expected by the first half of this year, brokers tell GlobeSt.com. Holder Manhattan Moody, a three-company group comprised of locally based Holder Construction Co., CD Moody Construction Co. and Manhattan Construction Co. will oversee the project.