Atlanta & the Games...Structures

Olympic Park

After the Olympics have gone, Centennial Olympic Park will look a little more like a park and less like a carnival midway. ACOG is putting $15 million of permanent features into the park. Following the games the Georgia World Congress Center, located to the south, will take over and complete it. It is hoped that the park will become a catalyst for post-games housing development in an area which has been an eyesore for decades. Landscaping right now appears more like "hardscaping". (Atlanta Journal Constitution) In order to accommodate the expected 100,000 visitors a day, real grass has been held to approximately four out of twenty-one acres. Much is asphalt painted green but there is a generous area covered by Centennial Olympic Bricks which one can still purchase with the desired names inscribed for posterity. The park will open July 13, 1996 and features structures and attractions by its many official Olympic sponsors whom have underwritten the $10 million cost of operation. Some of the attractions which are open to the public include the General Motors, SWATCH, Budweiser and most dominant of all, Coca-Cola pavilions. The AT&T pavilion, on the other hand, is closed to everyone except athletes and their families. Olympic Park