Tom Cousins, founder of a namesake commercial real estate firm, is being remembered not only as the developer of some of Atlanta's best-known buildings but for also influencing the culture of the city with his ownership of professional basketball and hockey teams.
The Atlanta native, who died this week at 93, helped transform the skyline of downtown Atlanta from the 1970s and through the 1990s with skyscrapers like 191 Peachtree and the Georgia World Congress Center, one of the nation's busiest U.S. convention centers.
Cousins’ “vision helped shape our skyline, his generosity helped rebuild communities and his values helped define modern Atlanta,” Andre Dickens, mayor of Atlanta, said in a statement.
Cousins and his father founded the Atlanta-based real estate investment trust Cousins Properties in 1958 with a focus on single-family homebuilding and, later, as a developer of shopping centers and regional malls.
He led the development of the Omni International complex in downtown Atlanta, a collection of offices, a hotel, retail and the Omni sports arena. The property was later known as CNN Center and is currently undergoing a renovation led by new owner CP Group with a new name, The Center.
Cousins, who retired as CEO of Cousins Properties in 2002 and as chairman in 2006, also led the development of Bank of America Plaza in 1992, a 55-story structure that’s the tallest building in the U.S. Southeast.
The real estate executive also had an extensive background in the sports world. He and former Georgia Gov. Carl Sanders bought the NBA’s St. Louis Hawks in 1968 and moved the basketball team to Atlanta. He also owned the NHL’s Atlanta Flames.
In 1995, Cousins bought East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta and led a restoration of the historic course and the surrounding neighborhood. East Lake is now the yearly home of the Tour Championship, one of the leading events in men’s professional golf.
Cousins “was a visionary and a man who had the unique ability to imagine what something could become and then make it happen,” Jay Monahan, commissioner of the PGA Tour, said in a statement.
Cousins Properties remains one of the leading investors in office properties in the Southeast. As of the end of 2024, the REIT managed 20.6 million square feet of top-tier office properties in Atlanta, Dallas and Phoenix.