Hotel Row is both a National Register and locally listed historic district consisting of one block of early 20th-century commercial buildings, three to four stories high, located on Mitchell Street west of Forsyth Street in the

South Downtown South Downtown is a historic neighborhood of Downtown Atlanta, Georgia, United States. South Downtown is primarily home to city, county, state, and federal governmental offices, which prompted the city to adopt signage declaring the area "Governm ...

district of

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

. The buildings were originally hotels with ground level retail shops built to serve the needs of passengers from

Terminal Station A train station, railway station, railroad station or depot is a railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passengers, freight or both. It generally consists of at least one platform, one track and a station building providing such ...

, opened in 1905. The buildings are the most intact row of early 20th-century commercial structures in Atlanta's original business district. The decline of Hotel Row began in the 1920s due to the increased availability of automobile transportation and the construction of the

Spring Street viaduct Spring(s) may refer to: Common uses * Spring (season), a season of the year * Spring (device), a mechanical device that stores energy * Spring (hydrology), a natural source of water * Spring (mathematics), a geometric surface in the shape of a he ...

, which made getting to hotels in the northern part of the city easier. In the 1950s and 1960s, the increase in air travel led ultimately to the demolition of Terminal Station in 1971."Hotel Row Historic District", National Register of Historic Places Travel Itinerary, National Park Service
/ref>"Hotel Row", City of Atlanta, Urban Design Commission
/ref> The district is architecturally significant because the structures that make up the block retain most of their original historic architectural character. Several structures were developed by

Samuel Inman Samuel Martin Inman (February 19, 1843 – January 12, 1915) was a prominent cotton merchant and businessman in Atlanta, Georgia, who is best known for the neighborhood in Atlanta that bears his name. Inman is also commemorated in the name of ...

and Walker Inman, two of Atlanta's most prominent businessmen, and the majority of the structures were designed by the leading architects of the period. They typify the early 20th-century commercial structures once common in Atlanta but now rare because of extensive redevelopment. With Atlanta's massive gentrification, plans were underway to convert some of the buildings into lofts, however these plans ultimately stalled as a result of the

Late-2000s recession The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At t ...

Buildings

Buildings in Hotel Row are: Mitchell1

References

{{Coord, 33.752225, -84.394633, display=title National Register of Historic Places in Atlanta Buildings designated early commercial in the National Register of Historic Places Neighborhoods in Atlanta Willis F. Denny buildings Roads in Atlanta Historic districts in Downtown Atlanta