Putting all the ridiculous political crap aside, Turner Field needed updates and renovations to bring it up to modern ballpark standards...if I recall correctly, somewhere around $200-$300 million dollars worth of updates.

The area directly around Turner Field also hadn't been developed really at all in the 20 years it was there (in terms of things for a better fan experience)...and given that it lies outside of the main city area, there really wasn't anything to do before or after games without having to drive back into the city.

They decided to move the team to an area they could both build a new stadium but also develop a huge swath of land around it as a year round usage area (retail, residential, restaurant district, etc). They also showed a regional layout of where most fans drove in from, and it was primarily from the northern suburbs into the city. The spot where Suntrust Park is built is closer to the core of the regular fans, but also remains relatively close to the downtown area of Atlanta too.

There are a lot of politics and stuff I was never interested in getting into since the start of this project, so I'll let someone else discuss that if they feel so inclined...in the end though, the new ballpark is going to be a really nice place to see a ball game and really just a nice place to hang out before and afterwards too, in my opinion (based on what we've seen).