Downtown lands Coca-Cola IT Center and 2,000 jobs

June 12,2013

The Coca-Cola Co. is launching an Atlanta IT center that will house almost 2,000 jobs to the heart of downtown.

Coca-Cola will put its “Information Technology Center of Excellence” at SunTrust Plaza’s Garden Offices.The location emerged as the favorite earlier this year to land Coke’s operations. The six-story Garden Offices were completed at the end of the dot-com boom in 2000 and outfitted with wide-open floor plans and lots of natural light to draw high-tech workers.

By the middle of next year, the IT center “will bring together nearly 2,000 of our Atlanta-based information technology associates and contractors in one central location to further improve the efficiency of our operations,” Coca-Cola spokesman Kent Landers said in an email.

Coca-Cola has entered into 275,868-square-foot lease in the Garden Offices for the next 10 years. It’s a huge win for downtown, and expands Coke’s already significant presence there. With its move, the company will employ more than 6,500 people downtown, between its North Avenue headquarters and the new IT center.