Location | Atlanta, Georgia, United States |
---|---|
Owner | Atlanta Fulton County Recreation Authority |
Operator | Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games |
Capacity | 85,000 |
Surface | Grass |
Construction | |
Broke ground | July 10, 1993 |
Opened | May 18, 1996 |
Renovated | 1996–97 (reconstructed as Turner Field) 2017 (reconstructed as Center Parc Stadium) |
Closed | August 27, 1996 |
Demolished | 1996–97 |
Construction cost | $209 million [1] ($406 million dollars in 2023) |
Architect | Atlanta Stadium Design Team (a joint venture of Heery International, Inc., Rosser International, Inc., Williams-Russell and Johnson, Inc. and Ellerbe Becket, Inc.) [2] |
Tenants | |
1996 Summer Olympics 1996 Summer Paralympics |
Centennial Olympic Stadium was the 85,000-seat main stadium of the 1996 Summer Olympics and Paralympics in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Construction of the stadium began in 1993, and it was complete and ready for the opening ceremony in July 1996, where it hosted athletics events and the closing ceremony. [3] [4]
After the Olympics and Paralympics, it was reconstructed into the baseball-specific Turner Field, used by the Atlanta Braves of Major League Baseball for 20 seasons (1997–2016). After the Braves departed for Truist Park, the facility was purchased by Georgia State University, which rebuilt the stadium a second time as Center Parc Stadium, designed for American football.
During the week-long athletics program, the stadium bore witness to Donovan Bailey of Canada winning the 100 m in a world record time of 9.84 s; Michael Johnson winning both the 200 and 400 meters titles, breaking the 200 m world record in the process; and France's Marie-José Pérec also winning the 200/400 double. Meanwhile, Carl Lewis won his fourth consecutive Olympic title in the long jump, becoming only the second person, after Al Oerter, to win the same athletics event at four consecutive Games. After the closing ceremony of the 1996 Paralympics, the stadium was reconfigured so it could be leased by the Atlanta Braves.
The Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG) designed and built the stadium in a way that it could be converted to a new baseball stadium, and ACOG paid for the conversion. [5] This was considered a good agreement for both the Olympic Committee and the Braves, because there would be no use for a permanent 85,000 seat track and field stadium in Downtown Atlanta since the 71,000 seat Georgia Dome had been completed four years earlier by the state of Georgia and became the home of the National Football League's Atlanta Falcons. The Braves had already been exploring opportunities for a new venue to replace Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium.
The southwest corner of the Olympic Stadium was built to accommodate the future baseball infield and seating; in the Olympic configuration of the stadium, the seats are not placed next to the oval running track. The southwest part of the stadium also had four tiers of seats, luxury boxes, a facade facing the street, and a roof, whereas the north half of the stadium used a simpler two-tiered seating configuration.
During reconstruction, the athletics track was removed and relocated to the field hockey stadium located at Clark Atlanta University, which uses it for athletics and football, and the north half of the stadium was demolished, reducing the capacity to 49,000. Because of the need to fit a track within the stadium in its earlier incarnation, the field of play, particularly foul territory, while not large by historical standards, was nonetheless larger than that of most MLB stadiums built since 1990. Reconstruction was completed in 1997, and the facility was renamed Turner Field. Afterward, Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium, the Braves' previous home and the venue for the Olympics baseball events, was imploded and the site became a parking lot for Turner Field. The Atlanta Fulton County Recreation Authority owned Turner Field, and the Atlanta Braves occupied the revised stadium until the expiration of their lease in 2016; the Braves moved to Truist Park in Cobb County in the following year. [6]
Georgia State University acquired Turner Field and its surrounding parking lots in January 2017 for a mixed-use expansion of the Georgia State campus, which includes private and student housing, academic, retail, and office space in addition to the redevelopment of the former ballpark into Center Parc Stadium.
The Atlanta Track Club's annual Father's Day four-mile (6.4 km) road race ends inside the stadium near the warning track where the finish line was located for the Olympics.[ citation needed ]
The Atlanta Braves are an American professional baseball team based in the Atlanta metropolitan area. The Braves compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) East Division. The Braves were founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1871, as the Boston Red Stockings. The club was known by various names until the franchise settled on the Boston Braves in 1912. The Braves are the oldest continuously operating professional sports franchise in North America.
The 1996 Summer Olympics were an international multi-sport event held from July 19 to August 4, 1996, in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. These were the fourth Summer Olympics to be hosted by the United States, making it the first country to have three different cities host the Summer Olympics. It also marked the 100th anniversary of the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens, the inaugural edition of the modern Olympic Games. These were also the first Summer Olympics to be held in a different year than the Winter Olympics since the Winter Olympics commenced in 1924, as part of a new IOC practice implemented in 1994 to hold the Summer and Winter Games in alternating, even-numbered years. The 1996 Games were the first of the two consecutive Summer Olympics to be held in a predominantly English-speaking country, preceding the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. These were also the last Summer Olympics to be held in North America until 2028, when Los Angeles will host the games for the third time.
Turner Field was a baseball stadium located in Atlanta, Georgia. From 1997 to 2016, it served as the home ballpark to the Atlanta Braves of Major League Baseball (MLB). Originally built as Centennial Olympic Stadium in 1996 to serve as the centerpiece of the 1996 Summer Olympics, it was converted into a baseball stadium to serve as the new home of the team. The Braves moved less than one block from Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium, which served as their home field for 31 seasons from 1966 to 1996.
Olympic Stadium is the name usually given to the main stadium of an Olympic Games. An Olympic stadium is the site of the opening and closing ceremonies. Many, though not all, of these venues actually contain the words Olympic Stadium as part of their names, such as stadiums in Amsterdam, Berlin, Helsinki and Paris. Olympic Stadium may also be named a multi-purpose stadium which hosts Olympic sports.
Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium, often referred to as Fulton County Stadium and originally named Atlanta Stadium, was a multi-purpose stadium located in Atlanta, Georgia. The stadium was home of the Atlanta Braves of Major League Baseball from 1966 until 1996 and the Atlanta Falcons of the National Football League from 1966 until 1991. It was built to attract an MLB team and in 1966 succeeded when the Milwaukee Braves relocated from Wisconsin.
A multi-purpose stadium is a type of stadium designed to be easily used for multiple types of events. While any stadium could potentially host more than one type of sport or event, this concept usually refers to a design philosophy that stresses multifunctionality over speciality. It is used most commonly in Canada and the United States, where the two most popular outdoor team sports—Canadian football or American football and baseball—require radically different facilities. Football uses a rectangular field, while baseball is played on a diamond with a large outfield. Since Canadian football fields are larger than American ones, the design specifications for Canadian facilities are somewhat less demanding. The particular design to accommodate both is usually an oval, although some later designs use an octorad. While building stadiums in this way means that sports teams and governments can share costs, it also presents some challenges.
The Georgia State Panthers are the intercollegiate athletics teams that represent Georgia State University, located in Atlanta, Georgia. All GSU teams compete at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I FBS level as members of the Sun Belt Conference, a conference of which they were a charter member. Previously, GSU was a member of the CAA, and prior to that, the ASUN Conference.
The 1996 Atlanta Braves season was the 126th season in the history of the franchise and 31st season in the city of Atlanta. They secured a regular season record of 96–66 and reached the World Series, where they lost to the underdog New York Yankees in six games, failing to defend its championship in 1995. Heavily favored and seen as one of the greatest Braves teams in history and despite taking a 2–0 lead, the Braves unexpectedly lost the next 4 games. This World Series appearance was their fourth appearance in the last 5 years as a franchise, excluding the strike shortened season. Atlanta won its seventh division title and its fifth in six years. In the previous round, Atlanta completed a miraculous comeback. After trailing in the NLCS to St. Louis three games to one, Atlanta outscored St. Louis 32–1 in games five through seven to complete the comeback. The collapse was remembered as one of the largest in North American sports history.
The 1997 Atlanta Braves season marked the franchise's 32nd season in Atlanta and 127th overall. The Braves entered the season as defending National League champions, having lost the 1996 World Series to the Yankees in 6 games. They won their seventh consecutive division title, taking the National League East by 9 games over the second place Florida Marlins. However, the Marlins would later defeat the Braves in the NLCS. 1997 was the first year that the Braves played their home games in Turner Field, a reconstruction of the former Centennial Olympic Stadium, which originally served as the main venue for the 1996 Summer Olympics.
Sports in Georgia include professional teams, Olympic Games contenders and medalists, collegiate teams in major and small-school conferences and associations, and active amateur teams and individual sports.
Summerhill is a neighborhood directly south of Downtown Atlanta between the Atlanta Zoo and Center Parc Stadium. It is bordered by the neighborhoods of Grant Park, Mechanicsville, and Peoplestown. Established in 1865, Summerhill is one of Atlanta’s oldest neighborhoods and part of the 26 neighborhoods making up the Atlanta Neighborhood Planning Unit system.
A total of twenty-nine sports venues were used for the 1996 Summer Olympics.
The Ivan Allen Jr. Braves Museum and Hall of Fame (BMHF) was founded in 1999, to honor various players, managers, coaches, executives, and others who have been a part of the Atlanta Braves professional-baseball franchise during its years in Boston (1871–1952), Milwaukee (1953–1965), and/or Atlanta (1966–present). The Museum and Hall of Fame, named after former Atlanta mayor Ivan Allen Jr., was located in Turner Field on the northwest side at Aisle 134.
The Georgia State Baseball Complex is a baseball venue in Decatur, Georgia, United States. It is home to the Georgia State Panthers baseball team of the NCAA Division I Sun Belt Conference. The venue, which has a capacity of 1,092 spectators, opened in 1986.
Sports in Atlanta has a rich history, including the oldest on-campus NCAA Division I football stadium, Bobby Dodd Stadium, built in 1913 by the students of Georgia Tech. Atlanta also played host to the second intercollegiate football game in the South, played between the A&M College of Alabama and the University of Georgia in Piedmont Park in 1892; this game is now called the Deep South's Oldest Rivalry. The city hosts college football's annual Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl and the Peachtree Road Race, the world's largest 10 km race. Atlanta was the host city for the Centennial 1996 Summer Olympics, and Downtown Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park was built for and commemorates the games.
Truist Park is a baseball stadium in the Atlanta metropolitan area, approximately 10 miles (16 km) northwest of downtown Atlanta in the unincorporated community of Cumberland, in Cobb County, Georgia. Opened in 2017, it is the ballpark of Major League Baseball's Atlanta Braves. Previously named SunTrust Park, the ballpark was renamed after SunTrust Bank became Truist Financial in 2020.
Center Parc Stadium is an outdoor stadium in Atlanta, Georgia. The stadium is the home of the Georgia State University Panthers football team as of the 2017 season, replacing the Georgia Dome which had served as their home stadium from the program's inception in 2010 until 2016.
The 2025 Major League Baseball All-Star Game will be the 95th Major League Baseball All-Star Game, presented by MasterCard, will be played between the American League (AL) and the National League (NL) of Major League Baseball. The game is scheduled to be played on July 15, 2025. The game will be televised nationally by Fox. The game will be hosted by the Atlanta Braves at Truist Park in Cumberland, Georgia.