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Georgia Institute of Technology
Story of Our Host Park
Midtown Atlanta’s Innovation Neighborhood – Technology Square
“Something is happening in Midtown Atlanta - Georgia Tech’s city-centered campus and Technology Square (Tech Square) has become one of leading destinations for corporate technology, research centers and innovation labs. (HBR Mar 2016)
The Georgia Institute of Technology has as its core founding mission industry innovation and economic development. Georgia Tech has played a strategic role in growing Georgia’s entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystem through the activities at Tech Square. Since its formation in 2003, this area - designed to facilitate private and public research ventures - has been a leading location for start-ups, corporate innovation and development partnerships. Tech Square has become the hub of innovation and the creation of new ideas not only for metro Atlanta, but also for the Southeast.
A mixed-used expanse comprised of more than 1.4 million square feet of office, research, retail, and hotel space, Tech Square is home to more than 100 startups, university research labs and institutes, corporate innovation centers along with the Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business in the area around Spring and Fifth streets.
Georgia Tech’s Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) at Tech Square is Georgia’s statewide technology startup incubator. One of the nation’s oldest and largest university-based startup incubators, ATDC has graduated more than 170 companies. Collectively, they’ve generated more than $1.5 billion in revenue in Georgia. ATDC also works with more than 800 companies and entrepreneurs throughout the state each year.
VentureLab, Georgia Tech’s commercialization program serving faculty, staff, and students, is another key component of the innovation neighborhood. Designed to bring research and ideas from Georgia Tech to the market, VentureLab has helped Institute instructors, staff, and students develop more than 300 startups. These companies have attracted more than $1.1 billion in capital. VentureLab was recently named the No. 2 university-based incubator worldwide.
Along with the programs above, Tech Square is home to other incubators and accelerators such as Flashpoint, Tech Square Labs, CyberLaunch. In 2017 Georgia Tech and the CEOs of 10 corporations announced a new early stage venture fund, Engage Ventures. Located in Tech Square, Engage Ventures is the largest-ever strategic grouping of major corporations in an independent venture firm. The 10 founding companies contributing capital, expertise, time, and resources in support of Engage include AT&T, Chick-fil-A, Cox Enterprises, Delta Air Lines, Georgia-Pacific, Georgia Power Foundation Inc., Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), Invesco Ltd., The Home Depot, and UPS. Executives from these firms will serve as mentors to the companies receiving financial support from the venture fund. Engage will offer programming and other services through a contract with ATDC.
The innovation neighborhood has helped foster an environment that attracts not only the start-up community, but also a number of major Fortune 500 and multinational firms that see it as a critical component that helps drive their business. A key that drives them to metro Atlanta is access to talent – specifically, access to the talent of students, faculty, and research at Georgia Tech and Tech Square. These companies include NCR, Worldpay, Honeywell, General Motors, among others.
More than 20 companies have opened corporate innovation centers in and around Tech Square. These centers draw on Georgia Tech’s student talent and the Institute’s faculty expertise and research capabilities, while also tapping into Tech Square’s natural entrepreneurial synergism. Among those are Anthem Inc., AT&T Mobility, Chick-fil-A, Delta Air Lines, The Home Depot, Panasonic Automotive, Siemens Mobility, Southern Company, and UCB Inc.
Tech Square is the Southeast’s premier innovation neighborhood and its success is garnering national attention and making it a model to follow. The Association of University Research Parks and the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities have honored Tech Square in recent years.
New High Performance Computing Center
Georgia Tech is moving forward with a major Tech Square expansion program. Construction began in December on Coda, a nearly 750,000-square-foot, mixed-use project that will create new opportunities in interdisciplinary research, commercialization, and sustainability.
Georgia Tech will be the anchor tenant, occupying about half of the 620,000 square feet of office space. The project includes nearly 40,000 square feet of retail space and an approximately 80,000-square-foot data center. Portman Holdings owns the tower, and John Portman & Associates is designing the facility. Construction is scheduled to be finished in 2019.
Coda will further enhance Tech Square’s innovation ecosystem by becoming a magnet for corporations and startups alike, while serving as a state-of-the-art resource for breakthrough research.
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