Technology Square, commonly called Tech Square, is a multi-block neighborhood located in Midtown Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Tech Square is bounded by 8th Street on the north, 3rd Street on the south, West Peachtree Street to the east, and Williams Street to the west. Tech Square includes several academic buildings affiliated with Georgia Tech and provides access to the campus via the Fifth Street Pedestrian Plaza Bridge, reconstructed in 2007. It also contains restaurants, retail shops, condominiums, office buildings, and a hotel.
History
Announced in 2000 and opened in 2003, the district designed by tvsdesign was built over previously vacant surface parking lots and has contributed to an ongoing revitalization of the Midtown neighborhood. In October 2013, Georgia Tech and local businesses celebrated Tech Square's 10th anniversary. In 2007, the Georgia Tech Foundation purchased the Crum & Forster Building, located in Tech Square, and sought permits to demolish the building as part of a plan to expand Technology Square. The building was designed in the 1920s by the architectural firm of Ivey and Crook, whose founders Ernest Ivey and Lewis Crook helped establish the Architecture program at Georgia Tech in 1908. Preservationists fought the demolition and in August 2009, the Atlanta City Council and Mayor Shirley Franklin granted the building protective status as a historic landmark. The Georgia Tech Foundation appealed this decision. It instead purchased an adjoining property where a SunTrust Banks branch was previously located. In September 2013, the Georgia Tech Foundation demolished two-thirds of the Crum & Forster Building, leaving only part of its facade, to clear space for the CODA Building. Further expansion occurred in 2008, when Georgia Tech acquired the Academy of Medicine, and in 2016 when Tech bought the Atlanta Biltmore. Both of these buildings are designated as landmark buildings by the city of Atlanta. In 2015, construction began on the CODA Building, what was initially referred to as the High Performance Computing Center. The 21-story building is one of the largest buildings in Tech Square, with Georgia Tech serving as the anchor tenant of the building and leasing out additional offices to other companies.
Georgia Tech facilities
It is home to the Scheller College of Business, Barnes & Noble @ Georgia Tech,, the Georgia Tech Hotel and Conference Center, as well as offices for a number of faculty and graduate students. On November 24, 2006, the Scheller College of Business dedicated the state of the art, Ferris-Goldsmith Trading Floor. The trading floor opened in 2007 and includes fifty-four dual-display computers as well as electronic stock information on the walls, training all levels of management students to use financial analysis and electronic trading tools. Management faculty use the facility to research improved human performance in trading environments as well as the creation of new financial service models. The trading floor houses Tech's new Quantitative and Computational Finance program.
Tech Square also contains several restaurants, including Moe's Southwest Grill, Tin Drum, Jamba Juice, Gyro Brothers, Chuck's Famous, Subway, Starbucks, Ray's Pizza, Waffle House, and a "Canteen" where several small take-away servers share a seating area. Within Tech Square are also found non-food retail establishments, such as T-Mobile.
