CENTENNIAL YARDS

I lived in Atlanta for years, and even activated Ford partnership activities in what locals call The Gulch. It's right beside Mercedes-Benz Stadium and State Farm Arena, smack dab in the center of the city. It's 50 acres of abandonment, the result of multiple failed financial investments over 50 years. To investors, The Gulch was a liability; to the city, it was a scar. CIM purchased the 50-acre plot of land for $5B in an effort to change all this.

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CIM had contracted a large branding agency to develop the identity. The failed. The branding didn't understand the city. Didn't understand the community or what this project meant to the city. It was void of any story or even purpose.

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With that effort in the trash, the brand connected with a strategy partner and me to rewrite The Gulch story. We understood Atlanta, its people. Its place in history. It's vision for the future. 

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We immersed ourselves in the land, in history books, in maps and archives and discovered something we never knew. A truth that was buried under 200 years of forgotten memories. It was at this very location that Atlanta (then Terminas) was founded as an important hub of commerce and connectivity, the South's premier railway yard.

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Wait, it gets better. The railyard was like every other railyard, but for one revision. Due to the ports of entry, the common wye (shaped like a "Y") formula was flipped for efficiency. Zoom out and the wye becomes an "A." Holy smokes, Batman. It was like a Bat signal, a beacon for the brand. With this inarguable brand truth, the story seed we needed took root and grew into a powerful, purposeful identity that united not only the community, but the past, present and future. 

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Centennial Yards is now poised to be the epicenter of sports and entertainment in the Southeast, blending work, play, and sport into one of America's most ambitious urban revitalization projects.