Originally scheduled to open later this year, the College Football Hall of Fame in downtown Atlanta “is headed back to the drawing board with no new date for the project's groundbreaking, much less its completion,” according to Stafford & Tucker of the ATLANTA CONSTITUTION. Atlanta Hall Management is “reassessing all its plans for the football shrine, including its cost, size and anticipated annual attendance.” Among the reasons for the delay was “a fall-off in fundraising” because after “an initial burst of donations, new investors have become difficult to find.” The possibility that Atlanta “could lose the hall has prompted other cities to renew their own bids for the attraction.” National Football Foundation President & CEO Steve Hatchell said that the group “expects to see a new plan at its board meeting in mid-April.” Hatchell also said that while the NFF “still believes ‘100 percent’ the attraction will be built in Atlanta, other cities have heard about the delays and expressed interest in the project.” The hall's reset “is the latest hindrance to a project that was considered a coup for Atlanta when it was announced with great pomp in September 2009 that Atlanta won out over Dallas.” What was set to cost $50M “for a 50,000-square-foot facility later grew to $82 million for 75,000 square feet” (ATLANTA CONSTITUTION, 2/23).
