Mac Rating: 5.00 | Votes: 1 | Date: 03/07/2026 00:34:00

No stadium in America has lived three lives quite like this one. Center Parc Stadium at 755 Hank Aaron Drive SE in Atlanta's Summerhill neighbourhood began as Centennial Olympic Stadium, the 209-million-dollar, 85,000-seat centrepiece of the 1996 Summer Olympics that hosted the opening and closing ceremonies and Michael Johnson's 200-metre world record. Immediately after the Paralympics it was rebuilt - as designed from the start - into the 50,000-seat Turner Field ballpark, where the Atlanta Braves played twenty seasons from 1997 to 2016, stacking division titles under the name of media mogul Ted Turner. When the Braves decamped to Cobb County, Georgia State University bought the stadium and 65-plus surrounding acres, closing the deal on 5 January 2017 and executing the third transformation in a fast-track nine months: the lower bowl reoriented, FieldTurf laid, upper deck seating covered, and locker rooms rebuilt, at roughly 52.8 million dollars for acquisition and conversion - funded without new student fees. The Georgia State Panthers opened their new home on 31 August 2017, and Cadence Bank's successor CenterParc Credit Union naming deal rebranded the venue Center Parc Stadium in 2020. The football configuration seats 24,333 with expansion room toward 33,000, making it among the more atmospheric mid-major venues in the country - Olympic bones, big-league concourses and premium spaces inherited from the ballpark era repurposed as club lounges and event rentals. The Alliance of American Football's Atlanta Legends played its brief 2019 season there, and the MEAC/SWAC Challenge has made the stadium its home. Around it, the university and Carter Development's Summerhill project has rebuilt the old stadium parking crater into housing, retail and a revived neighbourhood main street - the third act of a site that has now hosted an Olympic Games, a World Series and college football, all inside the same structural shell.