Hartsfield-Jackson Is Rebuilding Its Busiest Concourse: Here's the Wayfinding Lesson for Every Large Building in Atlanta

Hartsfield-Jackson Is Rebuilding Its Busiest Concourse: Here's the Wayfinding Lesson for Every Large Building in Atlanta

4 minute read | Updated May 5, 2026

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is the busiest passenger airport in the world. It has held that distinction for more than two decades, processing more than 100 million passengers annually through a facility that was originally designed for a fraction of that volume. The infrastructure strain is real, and the city knows it. The ATLNext capital program — an $11.6 billion modernization effort spanning terminal and airside facility renewal, Concourse E modernization, a new sixth runway, and comprehensive roadway and pedestrian circulation improvements — is one of the largest active construction programs in the Southeast. It is, in every meaningful sense, a city rebuilding its front door in real time while keeping it open for business.

The most immediate and visible component of that program is the $1.4 billion modernization of Concourse D — the airport's busiest concourse. The project recently reached a significant milestone with the completion of its final modular installation. Over the next two years, construction will shift to traditional stick-built methods, raising the height and width of the concourse, with sections temporarily closed to facilitate the removal and replacement of roofing and ceiling structures. It is a construction challenge of extraordinary complexity: modifying the physical envelope of a concourse that serves tens of millions of passengers per year without shutting it down.

And it is directly connected to the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Hartsfield-Jackson's renovation program is among the city's explicitly named World Cup preparedness investments. The airport is the first point of contact for the hundreds of thousands of international visitors who will arrive in Atlanta for the tournament, and the quality of their wayfinding experience from the jet bridge to the MARTA platform will set the tone for everything that follows. The ATLNext program's roadway and pedestrian walkway network renovations specifically aim to improve circulation and provide for better wayfinding — a recognition, at the $11.6 billion scale, that navigation is not a cosmetic concern. It is a functional infrastructure problem.

This post is about what that recognition looks like translated to the scale of Atlanta's large commercial buildings, healthcare campuses, and mixed-use properties — and why the wayfinding principles being applied at the world's busiest airport are directly applicable to the navigation challenges facing building operators across the city.

What Hartsfield-Jackson Is Actually Solving

To understand the wayfinding lesson embedded in ATLNext, it helps to be specific about the problem the airport is addressing.

Hartsfield-Jackson's navigation challenge is not simply that the facility is large. It is that the facility is large, heavily trafficked, multi-modal, and used simultaneously by populations with radically different levels of familiarity with the environment. A frequent business traveler who flies through Atlanta twice a month navigates the airport largely on autopilot — she knows which train car to board for the domestic terminal, which exit leads to the rental car facility, how long the walk from the MARTA platform to the check-in hall actually takes. A first-time international visitor arriving from São Paulo for a World Cup semifinal has none of that contextual knowledge. He is reading the environment in real time, under time pressure, in a language that may not be his first, attempting to navigate a facility that is simultaneously undergoing active construction that may have temporarily closed familiar routes and relocated key amenity points.

The wayfinding system that works for the first traveler and the wayfinding system that works for the second traveler are not the same system. An effective large-scale wayfinding program has to work for both — and for every point on the spectrum between them.

ATLNext's approach to this problem is instructive. The program's pedestrian circulation improvements are not simply about adding signage. They are about redesigning the physical and informational environment to reduce cognitive load for first-time users while not creating friction for experienced ones. Wayfinding infrastructure at this scale is understood as a system — a layered set of inputs that includes architecture, circulation design, digital displays, static signage, and staff positioning — rather than as a collection of individual signs placed at decision points.

That systems-level thinking about wayfinding is the lesson that translates directly to Atlanta's large commercial buildings.

The Same Problem at a Different Scale

Atlanta's large commercial buildings — its major healthcare campuses, its convention hotels, its mixed-use towers, its university facilities, its corporate headquarters — face structurally identical wayfinding challenges to Hartsfield-Jackson, at a smaller but no less consequential scale.

Consider a large hospital campus in Atlanta's midtown or downtown medical corridor. The facility serves patients who may be experiencing significant physical or emotional distress, family members who are unfamiliar with the campus and operating under stress, clinical staff navigating between buildings and departments, and vendors, delivery personnel, and contractors with their own navigation requirements. Like the airport, the campus has multiple buildings connected by corridors, skywalks, and surface pathways. Like the airport, it has multiple points of entry and a user population with widely varying levels of familiarity with the environment. Like the airport, it is almost certainly in some state of active renovation or expansion that has temporarily closed familiar routes and created new navigation challenges.

Or consider a large mixed-use tower in downtown Atlanta during the World Cup window — a building with residential floors, commercial office tenants, ground-floor retail, and a hotel component, sitting adjacent to a MARTA station that is itself undergoing renovation. The user population on any given day includes residents who know the building intimately, office tenants who know their floor but not the building's other uses, retail customers who have never been in the building before, hotel guests who arrived from overseas that morning, and MARTA riders cutting through the lobby as a pedestrian shortcut. The informational needs of these users are different, their familiarity with the environment is different, and the wayfinding system that serves them needs to account for that heterogeneity.

The wayfinding problem is not unique to airports. It is the defining challenge of any large, multi-use facility with a complex user population. What Hartsfield-Jackson's $11.6 billion program makes visible — because of its scale and its public profile — is the seriousness with which sophisticated facility operators treat that challenge when they have the resources and the mandate to address it properly.

The Principles That Scale Down

The wayfinding principles embedded in a program like ATLNext are not proprietary to aviation infrastructure. They are universal principles of large-scale navigation design, and they apply directly to the buildings and campuses that Atlanta's property managers and facility operators are responsible for. Here is how they translate.

Layer the information architecture. ATLNext's approach to pedestrian circulation improvement recognizes that different users need different levels of information at different points in their journey. A traveler arriving at the domestic terminal needs macro-level orientation first — which direction is the train, which direction is the rental car facility — before they need micro-level information about gate locations and concourse amenities. Overwhelming a first-time user with granular information at the point of entry is as unhelpful as providing no information at all.

For large commercial buildings, this means designing a wayfinding system that operates at multiple levels: exterior-facing identification and entry-point signage for users approaching the building, lobby-level directories and orientation displays for users who have entered, floor-level and corridor-level directional signage for users navigating within the building, and destination-level identification for specific tenants, departments, and amenities. Each layer serves users at a specific moment in their navigation journey. A system that is strong at the lobby level but weak at the floor level will fail users at the moment when they are closest to their destination and most likely to become frustrated.

Design for the least familiar user. The traveler who navigates Hartsfield-Jackson most successfully is not the frequent flyer — she would find her gate without any signage at all. The traveler who most needs a well-designed wayfinding system is the one who has never been in the facility before, is operating in a second language, and has no mental map of the environment to fall back on. ATLNext's explicit investment in pedestrian circulation improvements and wayfinding upgrades is an acknowledgment that the quality of the wayfinding system should be measured by how well it serves the least familiar user, not the most experienced one.

For Atlanta building operators preparing for the World Cup, this principle has immediate practical implications. The international visitor who walks into a downtown Atlanta hotel or mixed-use building lobby during the tournament will very likely be the least familiar user that lobby has ever served. Designing the wayfinding experience for that visitor — multilingual interfaces, intuitive visual hierarchy, clear directional cues that do not require English-language literacy — is the design standard the World Cup moment demands.

Build for dynamic conditions. Hartsfield-Jackson is not navigating a static environment. Construction activity is temporarily closing sections of Concourse D, relocating amenities, and changing pedestrian pathways on a rolling basis over a multi-year program. The wayfinding system that served passengers perfectly eighteen months ago may be actively misleading them today if it has not been updated to reflect current conditions. ATLNext's investment in wayfinding infrastructure is therefore also an investment in a system that can be updated — that reflects the current state of the facility rather than the state it was in when the signage was originally installed.

This is the single most common failure mode in large building wayfinding systems: the directory that was accurate when it was installed five years ago but now lists tenants who have moved, departments that have been reorganized, and amenities that have relocated. A static directory in a dynamic environment is not a neutral condition — it is actively harmful to the users trying to rely on it. Digital, cloud-managed wayfinding systems that can be updated in real time are the architectural response to this problem, and they are as relevant to a 30-story mixed-use tower in downtown Atlanta as they are to the world's busiest airport.

Integrate wayfinding with the physical environment. The most effective wayfinding installations at large-scale facilities are those where the informational system and the physical environment are designed together — where display placement, sightlines, and architectural circulation work in concert rather than at cross-purposes. A wayfinding kiosk positioned in a location where it is obscured by structural columns, or a directory mounted at a height that is difficult to read from a wheelchair, represents a failure of integration between the information design and the physical design. ATLNext's pedestrian walkway network renovations are not simply about adding signs to existing infrastructure. They are about redesigning the physical circulation environment in ways that make the entire wayfinding system more effective.

For building operators undertaking renovation or fit-out projects, the implication is direct: wayfinding and digital signage planning should be part of the design process, not an afterthought applied to a finished environment. The best opportunity to integrate wayfinding infrastructure effectively is when the physical environment is still being designed.

The World Cup Connection

Hartsfield-Jackson is explicitly among Atlanta's named World Cup preparedness investments. The airport is where Atlanta's World Cup story begins for every international visitor — it is the first Atlanta environment those visitors will navigate, and the quality of that experience will establish their baseline expectations for what navigation in Atlanta feels like.

When those visitors leave the airport and arrive at their hotels, mixed-use buildings, and event venues downtown, they carry those expectations with them. A seamless wayfinding experience at Hartsfield-Jackson followed by a confusing, English-only, outdated lobby directory at a downtown hotel is a jarring discontinuity. It communicates something about the building — and, in aggregate, about the city — that no property manager wants to communicate to a global audience during the most internationally visible moment in Atlanta's recent history.

The buildings that will perform best during the World Cup window are the ones whose operators have internalized the same lesson that Hartsfield-Jackson's $11.6 billion program embodies: that wayfinding is not signage. It is infrastructure. It requires the same seriousness of planning, the same investment in systems thinking, and the same commitment to serving the least familiar user as any other critical building system.

What Interactive Touchscreen Solutions, Inc. Provides

ITS designs and integrates digital signage and wayfinding systems for large commercial buildings, healthcare campuses, mixed-use properties, and hotel environments across Atlanta and the Southeast. Our work begins at the systems level — understanding the user populations, entry points, and navigation challenges specific to each facility — and produces installations that are architecturally integrated, content-managed for dynamic conditions, and designed to serve visitors who may be encountering the building for the first time, in an unfamiliar city, in a language other than English.

If your property is in Atlanta's World Cup corridor, or if you manage a large commercial or healthcare facility that faces the kinds of multi-user, multi-corridor navigation challenges that ATLNext makes visible at scale, we welcome the conversation.

ITS provides digital signage design, integration, and managed services for commercial, healthcare, mixed-use, and large-scale facility environments across the Southeast. Contact us today. 

FAQs

What is the core wayfinding lesson that building operators can take from Hartsfield-Jackson's ATLNext program?

The most important lesson is that wayfinding is a systems problem, not a signage problem. ATLNext's $11.6 billion program includes explicit investment in pedestrian circulation improvements and wayfinding upgrades because sophisticated facility operators understand that navigation is a function of the entire built environment — the architecture, the circulation design, the digital displays, the static signage, and the staff positioning working together as a coherent system. For commercial building operators, the translation of that lesson is straightforward: effective wayfinding cannot be addressed by adding signs to a finished environment. It requires a systems-level evaluation of how users move through the facility, where their navigation challenges occur, and what combination of physical design and digital information infrastructure best addresses those challenges at each point in the journey.

How does ITS approach wayfinding for large multi-building or multi-corridor facilities?

We begin with a facility assessment that maps the primary user populations, entry points, decision nodes, and destination types specific to the building or campus. For a healthcare campus, that means understanding the navigation needs of patients, visitors, clinical staff, and vendors separately — because those populations have different familiarity levels, different time pressures, and different informational needs. For a mixed-use tower, it means understanding how residents, hotel guests, office tenants, retail visitors, and transit users each move through the building and where their wayfinding challenges diverge. That assessment informs a layered signage architecture — exterior identification, lobby orientation, floor-level wayfinding, destination identification — designed to serve each user population at each moment in their navigation journey. We then specify hardware, placement, content architecture, and content management infrastructure that implements that design within the physical constraints and budget of the specific project.

Our building is undergoing active renovation. How do we manage wayfinding when routes and tenant locations are changing regularly?

This is one of the most common and consequential wayfinding challenges for large commercial buildings, and it is exactly the condition that makes digital, cloud-managed signage systems essential. A static directory or printed wayfinding map that was accurate at installation becomes actively misleading as soon as routes change, tenants relocate, or construction closes familiar pathways. A digital directory connected to a cloud content management system can be updated in real time — by building management staff, without vendor involvement — to reflect current conditions. During active construction phases, this means that wayfinding displays can be updated the same day that a pathway closes or a tenant moves, rather than waiting for a print vendor to produce and install new static signage. iTouch specifically designs installations for buildings in renovation or construction phases to ensure that the content management workflow is simple enough for facilities staff to maintain accurately on an ongoing basis.

How does the World Cup specifically affect wayfinding requirements for Atlanta buildings outside the immediate stadium corridor?

The World Cup's wayfinding impact on Atlanta extends well beyond the blocks immediately adjacent to Mercedes-Benz Stadium and Centennial Olympic Park. International visitors will be distributed across Atlanta's hotel stock, short-term rental properties, and commercial districts throughout the tournament window, and they will be navigating the city's buildings and campuses using whatever wayfinding infrastructure those facilities provide. A healthcare campus that receives a first-time international patient during the World Cup window, a convention hotel that hosts a FIFA corporate hospitality group, a mixed-use building that serves as short-term rental housing for visiting fans — all of these facilities will be serving users whose wayfinding needs differ from the domestic population those facilities were originally designed for. The World Cup is a forcing function that makes the case for multilingual digital wayfinding urgent citywide, not just in the immediate venue corridor.

Can ITS work within the constraints of a historic or architecturally sensitive building?

Yes. Many of Atlanta's most significant commercial and mixed-use properties — including buildings in the downtown core that will see the highest World Cup visitor volumes — are historic structures where signage installation requires sensitivity to the existing architectural fabric. iTouch has experience designing wayfinding installations for historically and architecturally sensitive environments, including surface-mount solutions that do not require penetration of historic finishes, freestanding display elements designed as architectural objects that complement rather than compete with the existing interior character, and low-profile recessed installations where construction access permits. For buildings like 143 Alabama Street and others in Atlanta's historic downtown commercial district, the aesthetic integration of digital wayfinding infrastructure is a design priority, and we approach it as such from the beginning of the project scope.

What is the difference between a wayfinding system designed for a domestic audience versus one designed for an international audience?

The most significant differences are in language support, visual communication hierarchy, and interface intuitiveness. A wayfinding system designed for a domestic, English-proficient audience can rely heavily on text-based communication — directory listings, instructional text, and directional labels that assume English literacy. A system designed for an international audience needs to reduce its dependence on text and increase its use of universally understood visual conventions — iconography, color coding, and spatial diagrams that communicate navigation information independent of language. Where text is necessary, multilingual support is essential. Interface design for interactive kiosks and directories needs to be intuitive enough for a first-time user to operate successfully without instruction, because an international visitor who cannot read English cannot read the instructions explaining how to use the kiosk either. These are design principles, not simply translation exercises, and they need to be applied from the beginning of the wayfinding design process rather than added as a layer after an English-first system has already been designed.

How should building operators budget for a digital wayfinding upgrade ahead of the World Cup?

Project costs vary significantly based on the number of display locations, the complexity of system integrations, the existing infrastructure in the building, and the scope of content development required. For a single-building installation — a lobby directory, several elevator lobby screens, and a visitor management display — budgets typically range from moderate five-figure investments for straightforward installations to larger scopes for fully integrated, multilingual, visitor-management-connected systems in larger facilities. For multi-building campuses or district-scale programs, costs scale accordingly. iTouch provides detailed project proposals at the outset of every engagement so that clients have accurate cost and timeline information before committing to a scope of work. We recommend initiating a consultation as early as possible given current hardware lead times and the volume of World Cup preparation projects underway across Atlanta's downtown corridor.

Contact us today to learn more about Navigo® for your property.