Dr. Tonya M. Matthews: I will probably start the story at the end of it, which is building a museum is not building an office building.

Museums are designed for people to roam around.

Brian Maughan Narration: This season of Built, we're going to do just that. We'll be roaming six different venues around the country, including the new International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina.

Dr. Tonya M. Matthews:  The museum is built atop Gadsden's Wharf, the former site of one of our nation's most prolific slave trading ports.

And one of our design features is that our building hovers over the site, uh, to respect the hallowedness of the grounds that we stand on.

Brian Maughan Narration: We'll visit the SALT Shed music venue in Chicago, and a former movie palace, the Landmark Theater, in downtown Syracuse, New York. Each of these venues has to navigate its own challenges.

Mike Intaglietta: …cineplexes were burgeoning all across the, The county and so the need for a 2700 seat movie theater wasn't really there. And so when it was threatened with demolition, the community rallied.

 And they said, we're not going to let this one fall away too.

Brian Maughan Narration: Saving it from demolition was just the beginning. The theater turns 100 in 2028... and the changes they've had to make to attract new patrons are different than the changes they've made to attract touring Broadway shows.

Brian Maughan Narration: And each of the venues we'll visit were designed to gather people, in very different ways. Join us at the massive indoor pickleball facility – Rhythm and Rally – in Macon, Georgia.

Alex Morrisson: …and we got a little bit into the feasibility of it and realized that the Macy's building had columns in the store, that were literally holding the facility together, were too narrow to fit a pickleball court in.

Brian Maughan Narration: And on a different scale…

DAWN: We are at Mercedes Benz Stadium, home of the Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta United.

So just the assembly of those trusses that are up there that are holding up that Oculus, the operable roof was incredible. We had the largest crane in the whole world here for months and months.

Brian Maughan Narration: I'm Brian Maughan, Chief Innovation and Marketing Officer for Fidelity National Financial. This is Built's fifth season, and we're going big on the places that people gather, and the different challenges we in the commercial real estate industry face in creating them... and keeping them thriving.

BRIAN MAUGHAN: And we're like in the, in the bowels of the stadium…

DAWN: Yes, the belly of the beast where all of the action is… We have about 250 people that are here on a daily basis.

Brian Maughan Narration: Starting January 24th, meet the people that make gathering together possible at each of these different venues. 

Dr. Tonya M. Matthews: It's actually about honoring that space. And what's interesting is that when you explain that to people, their relationship to the space changes.      

Brian Maughan Narration: Subscribe to Built: Commercial Real Estate's Leading Voices on whatever podcast app you like to roam around.