Immersive Entertainment Concept To Open 70K SF Venue In Centennial Yards

CIM Group has locked in an anchor tenant for the entertainment portion of The Gulch redevelopment, and it’s essentially a giant sports bar on steroids. 

Courtesy of CIM Group/Centennial Yards

A rendering of the Cosm entertainment facility at Centennial Yards.

Cosm signed a long-term lease with Centennial Yards Co. to occupy a 70K SF, three-level experiential venue in Downtown Atlanta.

“It’s such a new and innovative concept,” Centennial Yards President Brian McGowan told Bisnow. “By the end of 2026, we want it open. It will be most likely after that, but we’re going to try really hard to get it open by the World Cup.”

The facility will be home to three levels of sports bars and a separate theater section, which will house a floor-to-ceiling 12K+ LED dome screen. Cosm plans to air sporting events from partnerships with ESPN, the NBA, NBC Sports, TNT Sports, FOX Sports and the UFC, according to the press release. 

Cosm is one of the first tenant announcements in CIM’s 7.5-acre entertainment district that is underway. The project is expected to bring 470K SF of retail and restaurant space, a 19-story boutique hotel operated by CIM and a 19-story residential tower. 

McGowan said talks with Cosm began two years ago during ICSC’s annual Las Vegas meeting.

“Someone brought them to our attention. We had a meeting with them and that’s how it started,” he said. 

The project is the third Cosm venue, after one at Hollywood Park in Inglewood, California, and another in the Grandscape mixed-use campus in Dallas.

Attention to housing and retail has been a gradual shift for CIM and Centennial Yards since the developer was awarded an incentive package of up to $1.9B by the city of Atlanta in 2018. The project was originally envisioned as encompassing 12M SF, including 8M SF of office, but that vision has been pared down and rejiggered with more of a focus on entertainment and retail, especially as office tenants continue to downsize postpandemic. 

The “ridiculous” amount of proposed new office space that was first revealed in 2018 was largely about conforming Centennial Yards to appeal to Amazon back when the online retail giant was holding its national competition for a second headquarters location among various cities, McGowan told Bisnow. Atlanta was a finalist in that contest, but was ultimately rebuffed by Amazon.

“The market reality is you’re never going to build 8M SF of office. Ever. Even prepandemic,” McGowan said, adding that future phases of Centennial Yards could include up to 2M SF of office.

No office space is in the current phase, according to plans submitted when CIM Group got city approval in June to sell $557M in bonds to finance the entertainment district.