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Georgia Tech plans to transform The Biltmore in Midtown Atlanta into an Innovation Center. The revamped space will focus on fostering startups, research, and entrepreneurial ventures to propel Atlanta towards becoming a top-five technology hub in the U.S. Tech Square's growth includes new towers for academic expansion.
Tue June 24, 2025 - National Edition
For the next growth spurt at Midtown Atlanta's futuristic Tech Square, Georgia Tech officials are looking to a storied part of city's past.
The university recently announced plans to reimagine The Biltmore, a 1920s landmark originally operated as a hotel and apartments, into another facet of Tech Square that is meant to foster innovation and launch entrepreneurs, Urbanize Atlanta reported June 20, 2025.
According to school officials, the revitalized building will be known as the Biltmore Innovation Center and house more than 100,000 sq. ft. of research space, startup accelerators and offices considered crucial to Georgia Tech's ecosystem for innovation.
Standing 11 stories tall at 855 W. Peachtree St., The Biltmore was originally developed in 1924 by William Candler, son of Coca-Cola executive Asa Candler, before being converted to office space in 1999.
The building was acquired by the Georgia Tech Foundation in 2016 when plans first became known for eventually incorporating it into Tech Square, which is finishing its third new-construction phase across the street in time for a scheduled 2026 debut.
University officials have said that The Biltmore's conversion will be part of its ambitious plans to help make Atlanta a top-five technology hub in the United States.
"This is more than a building — it's a launchpad for Atlanta's future," said Georgia Tech President Ángel Cabrera in a prepared statement. "At The Biltmore, we're not just reinvigorating a landmark, we are creating space for more startups, more opportunity and more innovation that moves Atlanta forward."
Specifically, plans call for the Biltmore Innovation Center at Tech Square to house:
• Create-X Headquarters — Georgia Tech's flagship student startup accelerator. It already boasts of having launched more than 600 startups — with a combined valuation exceeding $2.4 billion — and plans to launch 1,000 startups annually.
• Quadrant-i — Turning the university's research into real-world startups by supporting inventors with guidance on finding customers, building teams, and bringing ideas to market.
• Office of Technology licensing — Designed to help companies around the world commercialize revolutionary research developed at Georgia Tech and accelerating the global impact of the school's innovations through strategic technology transfer.
• VentureLab — Offering comprehensive entrepreneurial and commercialization training, it will also be the home of the Southeast hub for the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps (I-Corps).
• Startup scaling platform — Providing space, mentorship, programming and funding to help scale early-stage startups from their first customer to their first 100 customers.
• Corporate engagement office — Bringing startups and strategic industry partners together.
• Venture investment hub — Hosting local and national venture capital firms alongside Georgia Tech and scores of locally founded startups.
• Additional strategic partners — Supporting organizations and corporate innovations centers.
Together, these assets position Tech Square and Atlanta as one of the most competitive ecosystems for entrepreneurship, research commercialization and venture acceleration in the United States, the university noted in a news release.
"We're honored to have been engaged by the Foundation to help bring Georgia Tech's vision to life," said David Tyndall, an original co-developer of Tech Square and CEO of Collaborative Real Estate, which will oversee The Biltmore's redevelopment.
"The Biltmore is the centerpiece of Tech Square, and now it will become an international crown jewel of innovation," he said. "This will be a place where founders build, investors engage and the future takes shape."
No timeline for The Biltmore's renovation was specified in Georgia Tech's recent announcement, according to Urbanize Atlanta.
"As home to the South's first radio station, this over 100-year-old lasting Atlanta landmark has its own tech history," said Pat Wilson, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Economic Development. "It's fitting that our Tech Square neighbor will now play a role as a springboard to the innovative companies and ideas that will take us into the future."
Tech Square is a 2.5-million-sq.-ft. innovation district that is home to more than 35 corporate innovation centers, including R&D labs, innovation hubs, regional tech headquarters and corporate labs, making the district in downtown Atlanta one of the densest center of corporate innovation activity in the country.
In 2026, two new towers will open in Tech Square to add space for Georgia Tech's Scheller College of Business and the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering.
In addition, the district is home to the award-winning Coda building, which integrates high-performance computing, research, and startups under one roof.