Georgia Tech, Portman Announce Coda in Tech Square

The Georgia Institute of Technology and Portman gathered Atlanta’s civic and business leaders Wednesday to announce Coda, an unprecedented collaborative building including Georgia Tech’s high performance computing center located in Tech Square. The approximately 750,000-square-foot mixed-use project represents a $375 million investment into the budding innovation district.

Within the development, 620,000 square feet will be office space designed to enable unparalleled collaboration between research and industry. Georgia Tech will occupy about half the office space. Nearly 40,000 square feet of retail space, including the adaptive reuse of the historic Crum & Forster building, will be accessed by a plaza, which will become a local gathering place and outdoor living room for Tech Square and Midtown Atlanta. The development also includes an approximately 80,000-square-foot data center, which Next Tier HD has been selected to operate.

“With Georgia Tech as the anchor tenant, the high performance computing center’s interdisciplinary, collaborative environment will enhance Tech Square’s positive impact in Midtown Atlanta, bringing together people in a mixed-use community of innovation, education and intelligent exchange,” said Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson. “In 12 short years, Tech Square has become the Southeast’s premier innovation neighborhood.”

“The Portman team is honored to bring to life the vision for this mixed-use property at Tech Square, unlike anything else in the southeastern United States,” said Ambrish Baisiwala, CEO of Portman Holdings. “We’re excited to develop Coda – encompassing collaborative office space, co-working and research facilities, a high performance computing center and interactive community space, collectively enhancing the innovation ecosystem created by Georgia Tech and Midtown.”

Coda represents the next phase of Georgia Tech’s Technology Square – Atlanta's most sought after neighborhood for technology- and science-based companies. The new complex will be programmed around high performance computing modeling, simulation and a sustainable innovation ecosystem that integrates the existing assets of Tech Square with new opportunities in interdisciplinary research, commercialization and sustainability.

John Portman & Associates is designing the facility in order to achieve the primary goal of bringing research and commercialization together.  The design includes the creation of an outdoor urban plaza bordered by retail and a giant interactive media wall, a high performance data center, and two office towers connected by a central collaborative core. This collaborative core will be a gathering nexus uniquely connecting every floor from top to bottom. The design truly represents the next generation of office space and will be a unique landmark for the city of Atlanta.

“We believe innovation is generated by looking at things in a different way,” explains Pierluca Maffey, vice president of design for John Portman & Associates. “So we are creating spaces that allow brilliant thinkers, creative minds and smart business people to come together, share their points of view and start a process that leads to the next big idea.”

Tech Square connects the intellectual capital of Georgia Tech with the thriving business community in Midtown Atlanta.  It is a magnet for tech startups and university spinoffs. The area has attracted industry innovation centers that include AT&T Mobility, Panasonic Automotive, Southern Company, Delta Air Lines, The Home Depot, Coca-Cola Enterprises, NCR and ThyssenKrupp Elevator Americas. Along with the new NCR world headquarters under development and Tech Square Labs, the eight-block Tech Square campus will soon total 3 million square feet of commercial space and more than $1 billion invested. The mixed-use development will serve as an urban “main street” for the campus and community. Leasable office and retail space will be represented by Portman Holdings’ Travis Garland, assisted by JLL.

Invest Atlanta has been very supportive of the project, which is anticipated to have an economic impact of $813.8 million as well as significant economic benefits – not only through the creation of 2,100 construction jobs and 2,400 jobs onsite after completion, but also through its impact on innovation in the region.