Atlanta, Georgia, United States
Peachtree Center Skybridges
Peachtree Center is a multi-block complex in downtown Atlanta developed by architect-developer John Portman from 1961 onward, whose office towers, hotels, marts and mall are linked by enclosed pedestrian sky bridges crossing public streets. The bridges are private property owned by the separate owners of the buildings they join, so there is no single operator or system-wide hours policy. Some bridges between the hotels remain open to the public while others are sealed, employee-only or closed.
Governance
Who owns it, who runs it, what the rules are.
- Owner
- Each sky bridge is privately owned together with the buildings it joins. Since Portman lost control of most buildings around 1990, ownership has been split among hotel owners, AmericasMart, and the holders of the office towers and mall (Banyan Street Capital until its 2022 foreclosure, then a lender-controlled entity represented by SitusAMC).
- Operator
- Individual building owners and their property managers; there is no system-wide operator.
- Hours
- No system-wide hours. Each owner decides; bridges linking the Hyatt Regency, Marriott Marquis and Westin Peachtree Plaza remain open to the public, while others are sealed, employee-only or closed.[04]
- Public right
- Permissive only. The bridges are private property and the public uses them at the discretion of each owner; no public right of passage was found.
- Who pays
- Paid by the individual building owners. No public subsidy or special assessment for the bridges was found. Some spans have deteriorated, including one to a former fitness centre.
Legal instruments
- National Register of Historic Places listing, Peachtree Center Historic District (ref. 100002207) ↗Federal recognition of the district, counting the sky bridges as individual resources. Listing is honorific and does not by itself restrict private owners or guarantee public access.[02]
- City of Atlanta right-of-way and air-rights easements ↗A bridge over a city street needs a council-approved easement for supports in the right-of-way and an air-rights easement over the roadway, as shown in the 2025 State Capitol skybridge approval. The specific instruments for the Peachtree Center bridges were not located.[09]
Governing bodies
Open issues
- The 20-story-high bridge to the roof of 240 Peachtree Street (Merchandise Mart) is closed, and several other spans are sealed or employee-only.
- The office towers and The Hub have been lender-owned since the 2022 foreclosure and were listed for sale in 2025, leaving the future of their bridge connections uncertain.
- Some city council members argue skybridges drain street life, a view aired in the 2025 fight over a new State Capitol skybridge.
- No single body coordinates wayfinding, hours or upkeep across owners.
Timeline
- The Atlanta Merchandise Mart, the first Peachtree Center building, is completed after construction began in 1959.[01]
- A sky bridge across what is now Ted Turner Drive links the 230 Peachtree Building to the parking deck over the Continental Trailways bus station, one of the earliest street-crossing connections.[01]
- The Hyatt Regency Atlanta opens; bridges built after it follow Portman's 'standard' barrel-arch Plexiglas design.[01]
- Forum magazine reports that 'you can go anywhere in Peachtree Center without going outside' via enclosed bridges, including a 22nd-floor span to the Top of the Mart restaurant.[10]
- A sky bridge connects the Hyatt Regency to the Peachtree Center shopping complex.[01]
- Peachtree Center MARTA station opens beneath Peachtree Street, the deepest station in the system.[11]
- The Atlanta Marriott Marquis opens; a diagonal sky bridge to the Marquis complex prompts the 1986 remodel of the shopping galleries into the Mall at Peachtree Center.[01]
- End of the period of unified Portman development; a later savings-and-loan crisis caused Portman to lose control of most buildings, splitting them among different owners.[01]
- Banyan Street Capital begins acquiring the office towers and mall in pieces, a process completed in 2017.[06]
- Peachtree Center Historic District is listed in the National Register of Historic Places (19 March 2018); the nomination was sponsored by Central Atlanta Progress.[02]
- Banyan Street loses the six office towers and The Hub mall at a September foreclosure auction; SitusAMC, for the bondholders, wins with a US$127.5 million credit bid.[06]
- JLL lists the six office towers and The Hub for sale; the hotels and AmericasMart are excluded.[07]
- During a debate over a new State Capitol skybridge, council member Jason Dozier cites the Peachtree Center and AmericasMart walkways as keeping 'thousands of people' off downtown streets.[08]
What it cost · who pays
- Atlanta Merchandise Mart construction · 1961
- US$15 millionCost of the first Peachtree Center building, which anchors the earliest bridges; individual bridge costs not found.[01]
- Foreclosure credit bid for office towers and mall · 2022
- US$127.5 millionProperty transaction, not a bridge cost; covers six towers and The Hub.[06]
The story
Peachtree Center began with the Atlanta Merchandise Mart, completed in 1961 to designs by John Portman, who acted as both architect and developer. Over the next three decades Portman added office towers, the Hyatt Regency (1967), the Westin Peachtree Plaza (1976), the Marriott Marquis (1985), further mart buildings and a shopping mall. He designed the buildings to be joined by enclosed sky bridges that separated pedestrians from traffic, an idea Forum magazine summed up in 1969 as being able to 'go anywhere in Peachtree Center without going outside.'
The National Register nomination identifies three bridge designs. The first, built from 1965 to 1969, were truss spans reaching the Top of the Mart restaurant at the 22nd floor. An interim design followed, including a 1965 bridge over today's Ted Turner Drive and a 1971 link from the Hyatt to the shops. After that Portman settled on a 'standard' concrete plank bridge with a barrel-arched Plexiglas roof one floor above the street. The nomination calls the result the largest privately developed elevated pedestrian system in the United States.
Unlike the Minneapolis or Saint Paul skyways, the Peachtree Center bridges have never had a municipal operator or hours ordinance. They were built by one developer for its own buildings. When a savings-and-loan crisis caused Portman to lose control of most properties, the bridges were divided among the new owners of whatever buildings they joined. Today the hotels, AmericasMart and the office-and-mall portfolio are held separately. Each owner sets access and pays for upkeep, and the public uses the bridges by permission rather than by right.
The office towers and mall passed to Banyan Street Capital between 2006 and 2017. Banyan lost them at a 2022 foreclosure auction, where a lender-controlled entity represented by SitusAMC bid US$127.5 million. JLL listed the six towers and The Hub for sale in 2025. The district was listed on the National Register in 2018, with Central Atlanta Progress sponsoring the nomination, but that status does not guarantee access or restrict private owners.
The bridges now work unevenly. A 2025 survey by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that the spans linking Portman's three hotels remain open, while others are sealed, employee-only or decaying, and the 20-story bridge to the Merchandise Mart roof is closed. The same year, debate over a new State Capitol skybridge revived criticism that such 'hamster tubes' pull people off downtown streets. The council nonetheless granted the needed air rights 10–2.
Questions people ask
Who owns the Peachtree Center skybridges?
Are the Peachtree Center skybridges open to the public?
When were the Peachtree Center skybridges built?
Is there a law guaranteeing access to the skybridges?
Does Atlanta allow new skybridges?
Sources
- National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Peachtree Center Historic District — National Park Service (2018)primary
- Peachtree Center Historic District — National Park Service (2018)primary
- Peachtree Center Historic District Listed in the National Register of Historic Places — Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Historic Preservation Division (2018)primary
- Like 'em or not, skybridges are a defining element of Atlanta's cityscape — Atlanta Journal-Constitution (2025)
- Elevated City: Updates — Georgia State University Library (2026)
- Lender Takes Over 2.5M SF Peachtree Center Complex At Auction — Bisnow (2022)
- The Hub at Peachtree Center, 6 office towers up for sale — WSB-TV (2025)
- Atlanta City Council opposes skybridge — Rough Draft Atlanta (2025)
- City Council signs over air rights for State Capitol skybridge — Atlanta Journal-Constitution (2025)
- Box 4, Folder 15, Document 66 (Forum magazine, April 1969) — Ivan Allen Jr. Mayoral Records, Georgia Institute of Technology (1969)primary
- Peachtree Center station — Wikipedia (2025)
- Peachtree Center — Wikipedia (2025)
- The Atlanta We Inherit: History, Architecture, and the Fight for Public Space — Common Edge (2025)
About this record
Confidence medium · reviewed 2026-10-19. Strong primary detail on bridge history comes from the 2018 National Register nomination (PDF downloaded and text-searched). No single published count of Peachtree Center bridges was found; the 25 'structures' figure covers more than bridges. No Atlanta code section specific to skybridges was found, and the brief's premise of a Central Atlanta Progress stance against new skybridges could not be confirmed (CAP in fact sponsored the 2018 National Register nomination). No individual bridge construction costs were found. Whether the 2025 JLL sale of the office towers and The Hub has closed by October 2026 was not confirmed. The NPS lists the National Register date as 19 March 2018; the Georgia DNR press release is dated April 2018. Verify current open/closed status of individual bridges on site.
Map geometry: 38 corridor features, © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), as of 2026-10-20. Levels come from OpenStreetMap tags and can be incomplete.
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© 2026 Open Civic Intelligence Ventures LLC. Quote with attribution and a link; terms.