A Hard Rock Hotel is coming to Castleberry Hill as part of the upcoming Castleberry Park development. The Atlanta Business Chronicle reports that the hotel, developed by Bolton Atlanta LP, will feature a rooftop bar, meeting space and live entertainment — as the name would suggest. Minutes away from the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the 220-room lodge will be ready to open in spring 2018, a year after the stadium's debut, officials say. While the Hard Rock may be the big news of the moment, it's small potatoes compared to the hotel planned adjacent to the stadium. Poised to rise from the ruins of the Georgia Dome, the unnamed hotel could have as many as 2,000 rooms, making it the largest in Atlanta. But for now, the Hard Rock at Castleberry Park is the only project moving forward.

Along with the hotel, the Castleberry Park development is slated to bring 122 apartments and 24,000 square feet of ground floor retail space to the neighborhood. As we reported a year ago, the project is receiving funds from the TAD to drive investment in the neighborhood, with $4.2 million coming from the city. In a statement this week, Mayor Kasim Reed described the Castleberry Park project as "a powerful economic anchor, bringing new jobs and further investment to our downtown corridor and stadium neighborhoods."

Once open, the hotel will be the 11th outpost of the brand in the United States, joining a list of cities Chicago, Las Vegas and Orlando. The Hard Rock group has been trying to bring a hotel to downtown Atlanta since at least 2007, when plans were announced for a hotel-condo combo next to the Georgia Aquarium. Those plans, like many, crumbled during the recession.

· Hard Rock Hotel planned near the Mercedes-Benz Stadium [Atlanta Business Chronicle]

· Downtown Projects Score Cash Boost; 500 Rentals Planned [Curbed Atlanta]

· Talk of Mega-Hotel Near Falcons Stadium Just Got Real [Curbed Atlanta]