The Georgia World Congress Center Authority’s long-planned major hotel concept is visibly under construction, with two cranes erected over the site off Northside Drive and initial floors coming out of the ground.(Josh Green/Urbanize Atlanta photo)

Atlanta's largest hotel in years is going vertical downtown.

Urbanize Atlanta reported recently that the world's first from-the-ground-up Signia by Hilton hotel is starting to rise in the Georgia capital city, next door to Mercedes-Benz Stadium, home to the NFL's Atlanta Falcons.

After breaking ground in April 2021, the long-planned major hotel concept is visibly under construction, with two cranes erected over the site off Northside Drive and initial floors coming out of the ground. Its building was commissioned by the Georgia World Congress Center Authority (GWCCA).

A joint venture between Skanska and Atlanta-based SG Contracting is erecting the new hotel.

The Gensler-designed project was on track to launch in late spring 2020, just after Atlanta's planned NCAA Final Four basketball crowds were to have cleared out of town, but the pandemic lockdowns and economic chaos scuttled both the college basketball tournament and the construction plans.

According to officials with the GWCCA, the Signia by Hilton hotel is scheduled to open in late 2023 with 975 rooms and a direct convention center connection. In terms of guest rooms, that would rank it between the fifth largest hotel in the city (the Omni Atlanta Hotel, with 1,038 guest rooms), and the current sixth largest (Sheraton Atlanta Hotel, encompassing 749 rooms).

Plans outlined by the GWCCA have called for the new hotel to be about 30 stories, Urbanize Atlanta reported, which would put the building among the tallest all-hotel structures in the city. That category is led by the 73-story Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel, completed in 1976 and still Atlanta's fifth-tallest building.

Signia announced in January that it had installed a general manager, Teri Agosta, to run the glassy new lodge, which joins a groundswell of new construction activity this year in an underdeveloped area west of the stadium known as the Gulch.

Agosta has more than 30 years of experience with Hilton and most recently opened the Hilton Cleveland Downtown in 2016.

The Signia project, which will be owned by GWCCA, calls for 75,000 sq. ft. of meeting space around the property, as well as a restaurant, bar and top-shelf wellness amenities, Hilton announced.

It will be the most visible part of the GWCCA's 2020 Vision master plan and represents a sweeping campus redo. Rising over the Home Depot Backyard, an 11-acre space for tailgating next to the stadium, the Hilton is planned to link with the Georgia World Congress Center by way of Building C at the Georgia Ballroom level.

The GWCCA is the largest combined convention, sports and entertainment campus in North America and is a key driver for Georgia's economy. Established in 1971, the GWCCA campus includes the Georgia World Congress Center, Centennial Olympic Park and Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

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