When Esquire chose The Optimist as the country’s 2012 Best New Restaurant of the Year, the news not only confirmed Atlanta’s growing reputation as a culinary destination — The Optimist has a popular oyster bar and serves spicy Spanish octopus with watermelon and coriander — but the restaurant’s name seemed symbolic of the economic and cultural resurgence in Atlanta, where “optimistic” is how Atlantans describe their city’s economic future.

Atlanta always had vibrant corporate residents (Coca-Cola since 1892, Delta Air Lines since 1941, CNN since 1980), but Georgia’s capital and largest city has also gone through poorly planned, mid-century renewal projects and the 2008 mortgage crisis. Before Atlanta hosted the 1996 Summer Olympics, the downtown was nothing like it is today.

“Everything in downtown was doom and gloom. The Georgia Aquarium did not exist, the World of Coca-Cola, the other attractions and hotels in the area, none of that was here,” said Joe Skopitz, assistant general manager, Centennial Olympic Park, in an interview with WABE radio. The centerpiece for the ’96 games would eventually become the epicenter of downtown revitalization, but it took more than a decade and lots of collective hand-wringing before the city turned itself around.

These days, not only is Centennial Park receiving a major facelift — new water features, a beer garden and terrace restaurant, art installations, more on-street parking — but even bigger projects are moving forward. The $30 million National Center for Civil and Human Rights — a museum and archival/cultural research center commemorating the contributions of Georgians to the struggle for African-American freedom and equality — will commence construction this year adjacent to the Georgia Aquarium.

Four years ago, the National Football Foundation decided to move its Hall of Fame from South Bend, Ind., to Atlanta, and construction began this past winter on the College Football Hall of Fame, a $97 million facility that will open across from Centennial Park in August 2014.

Earlier this year, Mayor Kasim Reed and Arthur Blank, co-founder of Atlanta-based The Home Depot and owner of the Atlanta Falcons football team, agreed on terms to finance construction of a retractable-roof downtown stadium, at a cost of $900 million to $1 billion. The Georgia World Congress Center, which will own the stadium, plans a 2017 NFL season opening, replacing the 20-year-old Georgia Dome.

Since 2007, downtown Atlanta has benefited from almost $3 billion in investment plus $182 million in public funding for infrastructure. It is also changing the way its buildings use energy. Responding to President Obama’s Better Buildings Initiative, Atlanta organized a Better Buildings Challenge uniting public, private and non-profit sectors to improve participating buildings’ energy and water performance. The challenge is under way with a benchmarking initiative for Atlanta’s 400-block downtown area, including City Hall, the Atlanta Civic Center and other municipal and landmark buildings.

“We want to become the most energy-efficient city in the country,” said Kristi Rooks, senior project manager of economic development, Central Atlanta Progress. “Organizations representing more than 50 million square feet of commercial space have signed up to take the challenge. Through a variety of efficiency improvements like new lighting, greater insulation or more efficient heating and cooling, we can make these buildings more energy-efficient and better places to live and work while creating jobs and building a stronger economy.” The investment will help create a downtown market ready to compete on a global scale.

Residential and office occupancy rates in metro Atlanta, especially downtown, and in the adjacent Midtown district are increasing partly because of two big developments. The $70 million Atlanta Streetcar Project, funded by commercial property tax assessments, is scheduled to complete its 2.6- mile, 12-station Downtown Loop in spring 2014. “For our high-rise properties to work, you really need transit,” said Craig Jones, executive vice president, Cousins Properties. “We feel that the streetcar will result in more development and raise the values of our existing properties.”

The Downtown Loop, using modern, streamlined cars, will link the lovely historic neighborhood of Sweet Auburn with the hotel district on Peachtree; the Georgia Aquarium; Centennial Olympic Park; the World of Coca-Cola; CNN; Georgia State University; the National Center for Civil and Human Rights; the Martin Luther King, Jr., National Historic Site; and many retail businesses and offices.

Streetcars first arrived in Atlanta in the 1890s and were ubiquitous throughout the city until the late 1940s, when commuters began driving to work from Atlanta’s rapidly growing suburbs. The city’s last streetcar line discontinued in 1949. It is projected that by 2030 there will be an increase of 4.4 million square feet of new office space in downtown Atlanta due to the streetcar system.

Just blocks from the planned streetcar route, the Atlanta BeltLine’s Eastside Trail is already busy with residents and visitors walking, running and biking along a 2.25-mile former railroad track, one of the first segments of the planned $2.8 billion, 33-mile BeltLine that will link 45 neighborhoods with a wide manmade path, spanning both wealthy and poor areas, all within a two- to four-mile radius of downtown. It will be the most expensive rails-to-trails project in the country but will add 1,300 acres of parkland to a city which currently devotes only 4.6 percent of its land to green space.

With 10 Fortune 500 companies maintaining world headquarters here, Atlanta ranks third in the nation in this category. Many of America’s best-known firms (The Home Depot, UPS, Coca-Cola, Porsche Cars North America, Turner Broadcasting, Delta Air Lines, Newell Rubbermaid, NCR, Equifax and Cox Enterprises) call Atlanta home. Business travelers have a wide choice of upscale properties with deluxe guestrooms and extensive meeting facilities, including two Ritz-Carlton properties (Downtown and Buckhead), a Four Seasons and a Loews hotel in Midtown, and The St. Regis in Buckhead.

Atlanta’s suburbs are also seeing corporate growth. In upscale Buckhead, Atlanta Tech Village, established in 2012, attracts technology startups to its recently renovated, 100,000-square-foot building where innovative firms like Clickscape, Sideqik, MeetMe Tix and nCrowd access workspace and personnel services.

In Dunwoody, State Farm Insurance is opening a 400,000-square-foot customer service center near Perimeter Mall. In Alpharetta, health care information technology company athenahealth will expand its Southeast hub by leasing space at the Northwinds Center. Developers of Ponce City Market, the largest adaptive re-use project in Atlanta’s history, are spending $200 million to redevelop a 2 million-square-foot Sears, Roebuck and Co. building in the Old Fourth Ward into a huge, mixed-use site with restaurants, retail and office space, and residential units, to open in spring 2014.

Scenic Drives

Meander through Atlanta’s oldest neighborhoods along Ponce de Leon Avenue, Lullwater Road, North Decatur Road and Clifton Road, in the Emory University and Fernbank Museum areas.

The 21-mile drive along the Piedmont Scenic Byway begins east of Atlanta and runs through the Ocmulgee Forest. Along the way are Creek and Cherokee encampments, the Piedmont National Wildlife Refuge, Civil War battlefields and historic plantations.

Explore mountainous areas around Atlanta on the Appalachian Foothills Parkway. Pick up Interstate 575 and wind along GA 515 and GA 52, passing Brasstown Bald, Amicalola Falls, the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Chattahoochee National Forest, for 60 scenic miles.