A boutique hotel is poised to join South Downtown, an historic Atlanta enclave that is trying to recapture its past vibrancy.
Hotel developer Thrash Group is converting a shuttered office building at 110 Mitchell St. into the 122-room Origin Hotel Atlanta, according to marketing materials on its brand’s website. The hotel, which will sit near the Fulton County government complex, falls under the Wyndham Hotel & Resorts umbrella and is on track to open this summer.
Mitchell Street is the main artery of the South Downtown neighborhood, which houses the largest collection of century-old brick and stone buildings in the city. Home to Atlanta’s Hotel Row and several historic buildings, the area south of the Five Points MARTA station has been the focal point of multiple ambitious redevelopment plans to preserve the area’s historic architecture while adding new retail, workplace and housing options to the city’s urban core.
Jon Birdsong and his co-investor David Cummings, the serial entrepreneurs behind Atlanta Ventures and the Atlanta Tech Village, recently acquired 53 buildings and several acres of parking lots across 10 blocks of South Downtown. Their plan to turn the area into a thriving hub for startups and entrepreneurs meshes well with the proposed boutique hotel, Birdsong said.
Credit: Fulton County
Credit: Fulton County
Mississippi-based Thrash acquired the 74-year-old building in 2022 for $16 million through a subsidiary, according to Fulton County property records. The transaction and hotel plans were first reported by real estate publication Bisnow. Thrash did not responded to a request for comment.
Originally an office building, the structure was slated to be converted into a hotel in 2016 by South Carolina-based Sejwad Hospitality, Bisnow reported at the time. The company paid nearly $5 million for the building and planned to transform it into a Choice Hotels International Cambria location, but that project never came to fruition. It went through foreclosure in 2021.
“We couldn’t be more elated about them getting closer to opening,” he told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “They’re a tremendous addition to the momentum that is occurring in South Downtown.”
David Mitchell, executive director of the Atlanta Preservation Center, said the new adaptive reuse project adds to a sense of historic preservation taking place in South Downtown.
“This respectful approach to retain our city’s character and integrity means more now than ever,” he said.
Before Birdsong and Cummings acquired their South Downtown portfolio, it was owned by German developer Newport RE over several years and became one of the city’s most high-profile revitalization projects. Despite renovating some of the buildings, Newport’s vision fell apart last year, nearly leading to the properties going through foreclosure before Birdsong and Cummings stepped in to buy the portfolio.
Birdsong said the Origin Hotel Atlanta team has been working out of Atlanta Tech Village Mason’s at 170 Mitchell St., a co-working space that was among his team’s first investments once acquiring the properties. The duo’s plans include installing another Atlanta Tech Village location within the 115-year-old Sylvan hotel building while growing the neighborhood’s retail, restaurant and bar scene.
The Original Hotel Atlanta is slated to include an onsite restaurant called Butter + Scotch and private event space on its top floor.
“Right now, we do not have a hotel plan, so we welcome (boutique hotels) with very open arms,” Birdsong said, who added that partner developers should later bring apartments to South Downtown. “It’s really energizing to see other talent and ambitious folks building side-by-side with you.”
Future of Downtown
This story is part of an occasional series by the AJC to look at the future of Atlanta’s downtown. Several high-profile developments are poised to bring billions of dollars into the city’s core while it continues to grapple with the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic and a challenging real estate financing market. Downtown will also soon garner international attention when the World Cup comes to Atlanta in 2026, providing a deadline for the city and downtown stakeholders to make promised improvements.
