Potential Atlanta NHL Expansion Team Thread

[AtlantaWhaler]

I'm not sure I fully buy that. I have no inside information, of course, but that idea seems like they would be cannibalizing their own uber-successful development at The Battery if they were to get behind another similar development, also in the northern suburbs. The Battery is intended to be (and pretty much is) a year-round destination, even outside of baseball season.

I'm not sure if a hockey-anchored development about 30-45 minutes away from their baseball-anchored development would really cannibalize each other. Could be wrong, but that seems like a different enough product.

 

[dj4aces]

I dunno man I see plenty of land around the developed area.

I'm not in real estate, but perhaps a factor is real estate prices/land valuations near The Battery vs land vallues at the proposed location. Just something to consider.

I'm not sure I fully buy that. I have no inside information, of course, but that idea seems like they would be cannibalizing their own uber-successful development at The Battery if they were to get behind another similar development, also in the northern suburbs.

It's really just my an opinion that Liberty Media would make sense. In my view, I think the one thing the northern suburbs have a lot of is money, and there's more than enough of it to go around, so if Liberty Media is actually involved in the development as well as the desire to bring a team to the market, I think they're a group who could make it work.

But with that said, we have no real way of knowing at this time who or what has interest and money enough to bring a team here. All we can really do is guess while waiting for this story to move forward.

 

[AtlantaWhaler]

I dunno man I see plenty of land around the developed area.

Only spot I see is just north of the ballpark and I'm not sure that shape would work. I'm also not sure of the parking.

 

[DaBadGuy7]

And build an arena next to Braves stadium. I hate where the current proposed site for the new arena is. And it makes sense because NHL season is during MLB offseason. It might not draw near the number Braves draw in terms of crowd but it’s still getting people to the area to shop and eat.

I think not having in a centralized location near downtown is a mistake imo. Suburban arenas haven’t proven to work in the Southern markets (Glendale, Sunrise) and I think this would be the same. I think an Atlanta team needs to embrace the community and locals there especially. I think working with the various HBCUs and establishing a night where tickets are cheap for the students. Putting it where it won’t be as easy to locals to travel outside a car imo isn’t the best scenario.

 

[nhlfan79]

I think not having in a centralized location near downtown is a mistake imo. Suburban arenas haven’t proven to work in the Southern markets (Glendale, Sunrise) and I think this would be the same. I think an Atlanta team needs to embrace the community and locals there especially. I think working with the various HBCUs and establishing a night where tickets are cheap for the students. Putting it where it won’t be as easy to locals to travel outside a car imo isn’t the best scenario.

Your last sentence exactly explains why they're putting the new development where they are. Downtown Atlanta is an impossible destination most evenings for most hockey fans, who mostly live within 15 minutes of the proposed location.

 

[BKIslandersFan]

Your last sentence exactly explains why they're putting the new development where they are. Downtown Atlanta is an impossible destination most evenings for most hockey fans, who mostly live within 15 minutes of the proposed location.

I don't see Atlanta is so different from any other US cities in this regard.

Only spot I see is just north of the ballpark and I'm not sure that shape would work. I'm also not sure of the parking.

View attachment 749580

Doesn't have to be right next to the stadium. Across the freeway there are lots of land. Just build pedestrian bridge.

 

[DaBadGuy7]

Your last sentence exactly explains why they're putting the new development where they are. Downtown Atlanta is an impossible destination most evenings for most hockey fans, who mostly live within 15 minutes of the proposed location.

But that’s my point, you are catering to the hockey fans where that’s a fraction of the whole entire of metro ATL area. It’s gonna be a tough sell for a somebody working downtown to drive to a building that’s 30-40 minutes away. I get in and around downtown has its drawbacks, but still there is more potential to draw new and casual fans than that area imo. Certainly you would know better, but that’s my opinion.

 

[nhlfan79]

But that’s my point, you are catering to the hockey fans where that’s a fraction of the whole entire of metro ATL area. It’s gonna be a tough sell for a somebody working downtown to drive to a building that’s 30-40 minutes away. I get in and around downtown has its drawbacks, but still there is more potential to draw new and casual fans than that area imo. Certainly you would know better, but that’s my opinion.

I'm exactly in that demographic, actually. I live generally in the direction of the new arena (about 15 minutes south) but work downtown only a three-minute walk from State Farm. It was nice just walking over to a Thrashers game right after work, but there are way more people who won't be coming from downtown to make a new team's games. The big appeal is that people will show up early, get dinner and a beverage or two at a restaurant, and hang out beforehand. That isn't possible at State Farm, unless you consider eating counter fast food (Chick Fil A or Arby's) at the CNN Center food court as the same thing.

 

[nhlfan79]

I don't see Atlanta is so different from any other US cities in this regard.


Doesn't have to be right next to the stadium. Across the freeway there are lots of land. Just build pedestrian bridge.

On the other side of the freeway is countless commercial office parks. It's already fully developed.

 

[KevFu]

I think not having in a centralized location near downtown is a mistake imo. Suburban arenas haven’t proven to work in the Southern markets (Glendale, Sunrise) and I think this would be the same. I think an Atlanta team needs to embrace the community and locals there especially. I think working with the various HBCUs and establishing a night where tickets are cheap for the students. Putting it where it won’t be as easy to locals to travel outside a car imo isn’t the best scenario.

IMO, it's completely dependent on the dynamics of the market. I can't speak for Sunrise, but having lived (and attempted to attend games) in the PHX metro area...

It's not that a suburban location doesn't work, it's that you have to pick the ideal place within a market, period, based on all the demographics/analytics/data at hand.

Centrally located stadiums for a market work in pro sports when there's interest from urban fans near the stadium, and a balance of suburban fans surrounding the metro area.

Houston is a good example: The "suburbs of Houston" are an outer ring around the city... Even though the urban population of Houston is less likely to be hockey fans than the suburban fans, a downtown arena makes sense because downtown is 25 minutes from both the Woodlands and Sugar Land. If you pick Sugar Land for an NHL arena, the fans in The Woodlands have to drive 40-60 minutes (and vice versa). But downtown, both drive 25. You get the max convenience of the people most likely to attend picking downtown; you lose one suburb or the other picking either Woodlands or Sugar Land. THAT'S why Glendale didn't work for the Coyotes... it was good for the Western Suburbs, okay for the northern suburbs (southern doesn't really exist) and completely terrible for the entire East Valley.



The reason that the Atlanta MLB team moved to the northern suburbs, and why an NHL attempt of Atlanta is focused there is that the market doesn't have an even distribution of affluent suburbs AROUND Atlanta. The northern suburbs is where more of the affluent suburbs are. If you're trying to maximize an "income/population map" of Atlanta, that's the best place to go.

 

[dj4aces]

The reason that the Atlanta MLB team moved to the northern suburbs, and why an NHL attempt of Atlanta is focused there is that the market doesn't have an even distribution of affluent suburbs AROUND Atlanta. The northern suburbs is where more of the affluent suburbs are. If you're trying to maximize an "income/population map" of Atlanta, that's the best place to go.

That's exactly it. South of Atlanta, the only real places that match this description is Peachtree City. There are parts of some areas, such as McDonough, Locust Grove, and a few neighborhoods in Stockbridge and Jonesboro. But it's a fact that most fans attending will reside near the proposed location.

One of the biggest complaints I heard from fans attending downtown is that it takes so long to get there, and they're typically driving from a much farther distance than I was. There's a reason why television viewers saw more fans populate the lower bowl at the end of the first period than at puck drop, and it's largely not because those lower bowl seats were populated with people moving down from the upper bowl.

South of town, I think the area would be right for minor hockey with a facility in either Peachtree City or McDonough. However, I have *zero* insight on whether such a plan even exists, or if it would even happen. All I can tell folks is a downtown arena for hockey in Atlanta would be a terrible idea.

 

[AtlantaWhaler]

Doesn't have to be right next to the stadium. Across the freeway there are lots of land. Just build pedestrian bridge.

If you're talking about that land east along the river (quite a long pedestrian bridge), that's state park and probably floodplain.

 

[AtlantaWhaler]

But that’s my point, you are catering to the hockey fans where that’s a fraction of the whole entire of metro ATL area. It’s gonna be a tough sell for a somebody working downtown to drive to a building that’s 30-40 minutes away. I get in and around downtown has its drawbacks, but still there is more potential to draw new and casual fans than that area imo. Certainly you would know better, but that’s my opinion.

This was a map the Braves used to show why they put their stadium in the burbs. It shows their ticket buyers. I'm not sure if baseball fans is a direct correlation to hockey fans, but it explains a lot.

 

[BKIslandersFan]

This was a map the Braves used to show why they put their stadium in the burbs. It shows their ticket buyers. I'm not sure if baseball fans is a direct correlation to hockey fans, but it explains a lot.

View attachment 750069

I never bought Braves "official" reason for moving to Cobbs County, it was pure land grab for real estate project.

 

[tucker3434]

Atlanta is a sprawl. We don’t have a big downtown highrise population the way some do. The official Atlanta population is only like 500k, which is smaller than Nashville and only about half as big as Charlotte. It’s our suburbs that do all of the heavy lifting and they are heavily concentrated on the north side of town. The epicenter of ticket buyers in other cities will be the dead center of downtown. It’s just not true for us. Here, it’s probably just north of Perimeter Mall in Dunwoody. But there’s no land there for this type of thing.

Obviously it’s possible to go too far north and run into the same problem but at the opposite end of the spectrum. But with the way the burbs are growing, I think that’ll look like a silly opinion ~20 years from now.

Edit: But I would love for them to tear down perimeter mall and put it there. Ideal location. Would be great for my property value.

 

[AtlantaWhaler]

I never bought Braves "official" reason for moving to Cobbs County, it was pure land grab for real estate project.

That's certainly part of it. That's part of every significant real estate deal in every city.

Probably not coincidently, that map reads pretty closely to the income levels in the Atlanta MSA as well. Don't know about you but if I'm selling a product, I'd like to put the store right where the customers and money are.

 

[dj4aces]

That's certainly part of it. That's part of every significant real estate deal in every city.

Probably not coincidently, that map reads pretty closely to the income levels in the Atlanta MSA as well. Don't know about you but if I'm selling a product, I'd like to put the store right where the customers and money are.

And as technology moves forward, businesses gain even more insight into who their customers are and where they live than they did in decades past. Sports business is no different in this regard. If most of their customers are traveling an hour or more to get to them, it only makes sense for their business to be located closer to the clientele.

The location of Truist Park/The Battery is working out quite well for the Braves. While it can be argued (and was, in a 2019 Forbes article) that the Braves cared more about the money, the fans show up, and don't have to spend two hours to drive 30 miles to do it.

 

[GreenHornet]

Atlanta is a sprawl. We don’t have a big downtown highrise population the way some do. The official Atlanta population is only like 500k, which is smaller than Nashville and only about half as big as Charlotte. It’s our suburbs that do all of the heavy lifting and they are heavily concentrated on the north side of town. The epicenter of ticket buyers in other cities will be the dead center of downtown. It’s just not true for us. Here, it’s probably just north of Perimeter Mall in Dunwoody. But there’s no land there for this type of thing.

Obviously it’s possible to go too far north and run into the same problem but at the opposite end of the spectrum. But with the way the burbs are growing, I think that’ll look like a silly opinion ~20 years from now.

Edit: But I would love for them to tear down perimeter mall and put it there. Ideal location. Would be great for my property value.

With regard to "big downtown high-rise population," you're quite correct that Atlanta doesn't really have ONE. It actually has several scattered about the metro area. There's downtown and midtown (which I consider to be connected, and includes Atlantic Station, and which has been growing somewhat as some neighborhoods in the area have been gentrified). There's Buckhead (which has kind of developed into a "city within a city" and even launched an attempt to secede from Atlanta proper and form its own city, but failed when the state legislature nixed it earlier this year). Moving out into the northern 'burbs, you have southern Cobb County, including The Battery and surrounding areas. You also have Dunwoody-Sandy Springs (which I kind of combine into one since they're kinda, sorta sister cities, though they straddle the Fulton/DeKalb county line from each other). And that's even before you consider smaller communities and mixed-use developments that have popped up in other places across the area, like in Peachtree Corners and Duluth in Gwinnett County, Alpharetta in north Fulton and now The Gathering in South Forsyth, assuming it goes through as planned (and expected).

 

[dj4aces]

But that’s my point, you are catering to the hockey fans where that’s a fraction of the whole entire of metro ATL area. It’s gonna be a tough sell for a somebody working downtown to drive to a building that’s 30-40 minutes away. I get in and around downtown has its drawbacks, but still there is more potential to draw new and casual fans than that area imo. Certainly you would know better, but that’s my opinion.

I'm definitely late to this post, but here's something to consider.
The Atlanta MSA consists of 24 counties, and a total population of 6.1m residents. Most of the counties north of the city of Atlanta are also the most populous counties in the state.

I'm not going to post an extensive list and their populations, because that can be easily found via Wiki for anyone actually curious. Values are estimates, rounded up to the nearest thousand.

Central counties include:
Fulton: 1.067m
DeKalb: 762k
Total: 1.829m

Counties north of Atlanta include:
Gwinnett: 975k
Cobb: 772k
Cherokee: 281k
Forsyth: 267k
Total: 2.295m

Counties south of Atlanta include:
Clayton: 297k
Henry: 248k
Fayette: 122k
Total: 667k
For the hell of it, if you also include Rockdale (94k) and Douglas (144k) that total becomes 908k. That's still not even close to the number of folks north of Atlanta.

As I said before, the southern Atlanta counties would be better suited for a minor league team. Put a smaller venue, ala Gas South, in a place like Peachtree City (Fayette) or McDonough (Henry), and watch the sport grow south of town. I lived south of Atlanta from my childhood until my mother passed in 2021. The sport can grow there, but one can't justify dropping a team downtown just because folks south of town might, maybe want to see a game when most of the money, fans, and people overall are north of town.

This is one of a few very good reasons why The Gathering is being proposed in south Forsyth.

 

[GreenHornet]

FWIW, The Gatherings at South Forsyth now has an official website that is up and running (linked below). Nothing new on it at the moment (that we don't already know), but presumably, any updates on the progress of the entire project -- and specifically, the arena -- will posted on it.

News – The Gathering at South Forsyth

Looking more closely, the above link was to the "News" section of website. Here is the link to the main site, which includes other sections.

The Gathering at South Forsyth

 

[MMC]

FWIW, The Gatherings at South Forsyth now has an official website that is up and running (linked below). Nothing new on it at the moment (that we don't already know), but presumably, any updates on the progress of the entire project -- and specifically, the arena -- will posted on it.

News – The Gathering at South Forsyth

Looking more closely, the above link was to the "News" section of website. Here is the link to the main site, which includes other sections.

The Gathering at South Forsyth

That’s been up since it was first announced

 

[GreenHornet]

That’s been up since it was first announced

Didn't know that. First time I saw it was a tweet (or whatever they call them now that the site is called X) a couple of hours ago.

 

[AintLifeGrand]

Honestly, the only excitement I have in all this (so far) is that my ten year shot-in-the-dark prediction may not miss the mark by too much! In all seriousness, It's really cool to see a development being proposed 10-15 minutes away, but until we start to see fire associated with all this smoke, there's no reason for anyone to be excited just yet.

I too share your idea that Liberty Media may be the ones involved. To me, it makes perfect sense. Having sports ownership already under their belt, they also know the importance of marketing and branding. I've long felt one of the failings of the Thrashers was not embracing the identity of the region, Not to mention, Liberty can afford a $1bn or higher expansion fee. Like you though, I also don't want some "Balkan" type dude (insert Kincade's tweeted image of a shoe here), or any other sort of snake oil salespeople type nonsense like another Atlanta Spirit. However, it does seem like they've learned from their Atlanta Spirit debacle, because they seem to be doing a far better job of vetting owners these days.

hard to embrace the identity of the region from Forysthe County

I will Still get season tickets, but the most OTP ideal location is Battery Area

I have no doubt Forysthe County/Alpharetta will succeed, but it will lack the authenticity and character an Atlanta NHL team deserves....There is no culture in that part of Atlanta. Its an amalgamation of track homes, transplants, and shopping centers.

 

[AintLifeGrand]

But that’s my point, you are catering to the hockey fans where that’s a fraction of the whole entire of metro ATL area. It’s gonna be a tough sell for a somebody working downtown to drive to a building that’s 30-40 minutes away. I get in and around downtown has its drawbacks, but still there is more potential to draw new and casual fans than that area imo. Certainly you would know better, but that’s my opinion.

you have a good point

The best location for a team is along the Northern Arc of the Perimeter: Dunwoody, Chamblee, Smyrna, Doraville

I'm exactly in that demographic, actually. I live generally in the direction of the new arena (about 15 minutes south) but work downtown only a three-minute walk from State Farm. It was nice just walking over to a Thrashers game right after work, but there are way more people who won't be coming from downtown to make a new team's games. The big appeal is that people will show up early, get dinner and a beverage or two at a restaurant, and hang out beforehand. That isn't possible at State Farm, unless you consider eating counter fast food (Chick Fil A or Arby's) at the CNN Center food court as the same thing.

those CNN Center 24 oz beers did hit different tho

 

[dj4aces]

hard to embrace the identity of the region from Forysthe County

I will Still get season tickets, but the most OTP ideal location is Battery Area

I have no doubt Forysthe County/Alpharetta will succeed, it will lack the authenticity and character an Atlanta NHL team deserves....There is no culture in that part of Atlanta. Its an amalgamation of track homes, transplants, and shopping centers.

I believe one of the reasons why they're proposing it in south Forsyth is because there's very little there compared to the rest of metro Atlanta, while the area is also growing quickly. They can build up the area around it, build for future infrastructure improvements, etc.

But the problem with building closer to Atlanta is... where ya gonna put it? Will landowners sell their property in Doraville or Smyrna? If so, what about rezoning the land for a mixed-use development? As much as we might love to do it, we can't just open Cities Skylines, destroy what's on a parcel of land and drop an arena on it, so I don't think it's possible to put a mixed-use in any of those areas, much less just an arena. I'd like to think these developers investigated that possibility before choosing south Forsyth, but I don't have that answer.

You're not necessarily wrong about the area... but transplants are *everywhere* in metro Atlanta. Including me. But there is absolutely an identity for a potential franchose to adopt, NHL history for it to embrace (the former Atlanta/Calgary Flames living in the area were never embraced by Turner or Atlanta Spirit). There's plenty that an organization can do to adopt a local identity, even from 30 miles away.

South Forsyth isn't ideal, in my opinion, but it apparently fits the vision the developers have.