Georgia Tech, Portman launch Coda in Midtown

$375 million tower joins Technology Square; 2019 is completion date.

Georgia Tech and its development partner Portman Holdings turned dirt Tuesday to mark construction of the second phase of Technology Square, a $375 million tower known as Coda.

The ceremonial groundbreaking was two decades in the making, dating to when former Georgia Tech President Wayne Clough considered buying what were then lonely parking lots near Fifth and Spring streets. The research university, backed by its foundation, would buy up blocks of land in Midtown and leap over the Downtown Connector, an investment that has turned the area into one of the hottest crossroads for tech innovation in the nation.

Technology Square opened about 13 years ago, and today it is home to Tech’s business school, startup incubators, corporate research centers, a hotel and conference center, and soon, Coda, a 21-story tower that will join Georgia Tech’s research tal-

ent with advanced computing capabilities and offices for high-tech companies.

AT&T, Home Depot, Southern Company, Panasonic and other companies have research labs at Tech Square or nearby, and NCR is building its new global headquarters there.

Kevin Green, who leads the Midtown Alliance, said Tech’s influence spreads across Midtown. But in a 1.2-squaremile area adjacent to Tech Square, about 22 construction projects are underway that will house thousands of residents and high-paying corporate jobs.

Tech and Portman hope the tower will be finished in early 2019.

Plans call for the L-shaped glass building at Spring and Fourth streets to house about 2,400 workers, including Tech researchers and staff and employees from private sector firms.

“It’s not going to be your sterile corporate office building,” Portman vice chairman Jack Portman said. “It will be dynamic . ... It will be a laboratory of innovation, brimming with brain power, combustible ideas and creative energy.”

Coda is the first Midtown project for Portman, founded by architect-developer John C. Portman Jr., a Tech grad whose projects dot Atlanta’s skyline. Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson said the school’s cybersecurity and the chief information officer’s operations will be among functions housed at Coda. About half of the tower will be occupied by the private sector.

CONTRIBUTED BY BRANDEN CAMP Portman Holdings Vice Chairman Jack Portman speaks during the ground breaking ceremony of Coda at Tech Square in Midtown on Tuesday.