To what extent has the Mercedes-Benz Stadium redevelopment delivered the community benefits promised to Westside residents?
Completed in 2017 at a cost of approximately $1.5–1.8 billion, Mercedes-Benz Stadium serves as the home of the Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta United FC and has become a national venue for major sporting events with capacities ranging from 42,500 to over 79,000 spectators. It hosted Super Bowl LIII in 2019 and is scheduled to host Super Bowl LXII in 2028. The broader, multi-functional district is owned by the Georgia World Congress Center Authority (GWCCA) and encompasses a cluster of civic landmarks including: Centennial Olympic Park, the Georgia World Congress Center, State Farm Arena, the Home Depot Backyard, and additional hospitality and convention facilities. Just west, on the other side of Northside Drive, lie the Westside neighborhoods of Vine City, English Avenue, and Castleberry Hill.
Vine City, in particular, is central to the history of Atlanta. In the early twentieth century, it emerged as one of Atlanta’s earliest and most distinguished Black neighborhoods, becoming a center of Black business and cultural life. Anchored by influential residents like Alonzo Herndon, the city’s first Black millionaire, and Martin Luther King Jr. and his family, “the neighborhood was seen as a cradle of civil rights during the 1950s and 1960s.” Over time, however, decades of racialized disinvestment, vacancy, and structural neglect left Vine City burdened by poverty and blight. In 2017, the New York Times described English Avenue and Vine City as “two of the poorest neighborhoods in the Southeastern United States… where 42 percent of households are in poverty and the unemployment rate is twice that of the rest of Fulton County.” Together, these conditions form the social and spatial context through which the stadium’s presence, promises, and impacts must be understood.
The recent history of Atlanta’s Westside has stadiums at its center — first the Georgia Dome, then the Mercedes-Benz Stadium. The Westside TAD, or Tax Allocation District, dates back to 1992, envisioned as a roughly $32 million financing tool to jump-start reinvestment in neighborhoods like Vine City and English Avenue, but its early decades unfolded alongside a more complicated history. In the 1990s, the state leveled Lightning, a once-stable, middle-class Black neighborhood, to make way for the Georgia Dome. Despite more than $100 million in public investment over the years, “by the tail end of the Great Recession, the neighborhoods were no better off than before.” By the mid-2010s, the area had dropped from 9,000 residents to just 3,000, its landscape marked by abandoned apartments and overgrown lots. So, when Falcons owner Arthur Blank began pushing for a new stadium in the mid-2000s, arguing that the team needed an outdoor-capable, globally competitive facility, the conversation quickly became about more than sports.
Our methodology centered around whether the promises for Mercedes-Benz Stadium were kept or broken during and after construction. For analysis purposes and data availability, the site is defined as the census tracts within the Westside TAD. We analyzed key indicators outlined in the community benefit plan and compared those metrics at two different points in time before and after the build–2012 and 2022-2025. Analysis was conducted at both the site-level and city-level when appropriate. We chose three indicators: (1) housing, (2) workforce, and (3) open space.
The bulk of the analysis utilized ten different data sources. We used 5-year ACS data from 2008 to 2012 and from 2018 to 2022 to analyze demographics and housing. Similarly, we used origin-destination data from Longitudinal Employer Household Dynamics (LEHD) from 2012 and 2022 to examine workforce outcomes. We also used urban agriculture data from 2012 and 2025. Finally, we used a mix of spatial data from the City of Atlanta’s Open Data Portal, including city boundaries, TAD boundaries, neighborhood boundaries, and park space.