📍 Atlanta, Georgia
🏈 Home of Georgia State Panthers football

The storied venue at 755 Hank Aaron Dr. has worn many hats over the years and has hosted a variety of Atlanta’s marquee events. It was center stage for a multitude of Olympic events when the Games came to town in 1996, and was then home to Major League Baseball for nearly twenty years. In 2017, when the Braves left for greener pastures in the suburbs, Georgia State University stepped in and transformed the stadium once more – this time for football.

Echoes of Turner Field

Head downtown for a Panthers football game and remnants from the baseball days of what is now Center Parc Credit Union Stadium are everywhere you look. A lot of the ballpark configurations from Turner Field remain, including the still-intact home plate seating area and the outfield turned storage and parking lot. Not to mention that a lot of the stadium seating faces the direction that home plate used to be, which is slightly uncomfortable when watching football.

Georgia State constructed a new section of seats running the length of the football field when they took over the old ballpark, leaving a massive swath of the outfield seating unusable and empty. Some of these areas are now used for storage and are closed off to fans, but most of the inaccessible spots in the stadium are simply empty. Decaying concessions stands and concrete strewn with weeds give the place an air of abandonment, though thankfully it’s all mostly hidden from the view of game-goers.

The entire upper level of the stadium is tarped off and inaccessible as well. Georgia State draws pretty well for a Sun Belt school, but average attendance still isn’t nearly enough to warrant a capacity of 50,000+. With just the lower levels open, the reduced capacity of a little over 24,000 works just fine.

While it’s surely sad to see a former Major League ballpark in such decay and disrepair, Georgia State and their football program are a welcome savior and are doing their best to breathe life back into the stadium. Without them, who knows what would’ve become of old Turner Field. Torn down? Abandoned? That’s a world I’m glad we don’t have to live in.

A Stadium Reincarnated

Today, the fan-side of Center Parc Stadium is a walk down memory lane for fans who frequented Braves games. It’s exciting to see how the concourses, communal areas and the concessions have been largely untouched since the baseball days, yet the entire configuration of the stadium has changed drastically. There’s new seating areas that offer novel vantage points, and a new food-truck space in the stadium’s northeast corner. The Panthers have a team store and a cool kids space in that area as well, all aspects that show that the team is really making this their home.

The neighborhood around Center Parc, and formerly Turner Field, used to be just low-income housing and expansive parking lots. After some new development sparked by the arrival of the Panthers from the Georgia Dome, some of those parking lots have been cultivated into chic apartments, shops and restaurants. Georgia State also built their new basketball arena, the GSU Convocation Center, on a site just to the north. All this new mixed-use development has helped somewhat revitalize the Summerhill neighborhood – just a shame this couldn’t have been done when the Braves were still around, though.

While the setup and environment of Center Parc are cool enough, the real excitement is the Panthers gameday tradition. After all, this is college football we’re talking about. From the team entrance to the touchdown celebrations, Georgia State football creates an experience full of spectacle. That experience even extends to the pre-game tailgate. The open courtyard on the north side of the stadium is home to a small tent city full of food, music and fun to get fans in the football spirit.

When GSU takes the field, fireworks and sparklers kick the night off in style. Throughout the game, including after touchdowns and on opponents’ third down, listen for the earsplitting train horn. It rocks the whole stadium and can be heard echoing blocks away, letting all of the ATL know that the Panthers are once again on the prowl.

Center Parc Stadium may have a long way to go in order to shed its image as Turner Field, but one day it might possibly become, like the name of its tenants’ marching band, the “Spirit of Downtown.”

Info Invasion

Parking: There are several lots just north of the venue near the site of old Fulton County Stadium that range from $15-$20
Nearby Venue(s): GSU Convocation Center, Bobby Dodd Stadium
In the Area: Walk in the footsteps of our nation’s greatest Civil Rights leader at the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site located nearby