Atlanta's Midtown Achieving 'Tech Hub' Status

"Enterprise tech is abandoning the suburbs for Midtown Atlanta, in search of cool," according to Urvaksh Karkaria.

According to the article, recent relocations by NCR Corp., Worldplay, and Sage North America into the Midtown neighborhood have even pushed office rents up far enough to force some companies seeking urban amenities to look to West Midtown and the Fairlie-Poplar neighborhood in Downtown Atlanta.

In fact, writes, Karkaria, "[t]he gritty West Midtown is getting gentrified. The area’s dilapidated warehouses and mills are being transformed into chic mixed-use developments that boast hip condos and chef-driven restaurants — amenities critical to supporting a commercial office node. West Midtown is home to a thriving community of digital agencies and tech startups, including animation studio Bento Box Entertainment, e-commerce startup Scoutmob, manufacturing tech startup SoftWear Automation and information security firm CodeGuard."

Georgia Tech has also taken notice of the trend, according to Karkaria, and is "considering the possibility of turning 60 acres in West Midtown into a health care and biosciences innovation district, which would attract a wave of startups and corporate developments to the area."

The article goes on to describe the characteristics of the Midtown neighborhood that attract the much-sought-after creative class. The article also notes a few of the challenges facing the neighborhood's ongoing status as a "cool" location for offices, including climbing rents and inflexible lease terms.