The Signia by Hilton, completed in January, is Atlanta’s largest hotel project in decades and helped force the Georgia World Congress Center to be ENR Southeast’s 2024 landlord.
Photo by Derek Lacey for ENR
In 2023, the Georgia World Convention Center Authority broke ground on Atlanta’s largest hotel project in 40 years, adding another jewel to its crown of downtown Atlanta landmarks.
Completed in January, the $326 million Signia by Hilton Atlanta is the latest amenity for the Georgia World Convention Center Authority (GWCCA), joining its other destinations, such as the home of Atlanta Falcons, Mercedez-Benz Stadium, Centennial Olympic Park and the Georgia World Congress Center itself, which hosted more than 160 events last fiscal year with nearly 200,000 attendees. GWCCA ranks as the largest combined convention, sports and entertainment campus in North America.
ENR Southeast delved into GWCCA’s hotel project in May, outlining how the project had to navigate a maze of utilities and underground foundations from the old Georgia dome, persisting through the COVID-19 pandemic that shook the construction and hospitality industries.
The Authority paused plans for the hotel, but maintaining confidence in market demand, pushed the project forward in 2021, making it a benchmark to see how the market affected by the pandemic to bond issues for the approximately 1,000 rooms. hotel
GWCCA COO Kevin Duvall told ENR at the time that GWCCA “felt the long-term viability was solid and we would recover. And we have.”
That persistence continues to pay off with the now complete hotel, which boasts 976 rooms in the 42-story tower and a 400,000-square-foot grand ballroom built without columns by using long-span trusses of more of 200 feet.
GWCCA also manages the Savannah Convention Center, which includes an ongoing $276 million expansion project to double the exhibit hall space and add a 900-space parking deck.
The Authority kept pace with ambitious plans in 2023 despite navigating market uncertainty in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic which had a marked impact on hospitality markets, a successful strategy that has put GWCCA in a position to continue growing and continue to make its mark on the market. The Atlanta skyline as it looks to the future.
GWCCA will be featured in the March 25 edition of ENR Southeast as the 2024 Landlord of the Year, chosen from among the outstanding landowners the magazine has written about in the past calendar year. We’ll delve into what makes GWCCA tick, as well as its decision to move forward with the flagship hotel and its other completed and planned capital projects.
