Global Health Innovation District Launches at Midtown's Tower Square
New hub expected to bring jobs, investment and businesses to the area.
Published: 12/15/21
The health innovation hub announcement was attended by (left to right) Shay Foley, General Manager, Alcon; Anil Menon, Executive Vice President of Community and Urban Services, Sharecare; Clark Dean, Executive Managing Director, Transwestern; Dr. Russell Medford, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Center for Global Health Innovation; Maria Thacker Goethe, CEO, Center for Global Health Innovation, City of Atlanta Mayor-Elect Andre Dickens; David Hartnett, Chief Economic Development Officer, Metro Atlanta Chamber; and Doug Shipman, Atlanta City Council President-Elect.
Tower Square in Midtown, formerly the AT&T Building, will be the new home of a global health district, the Center for Global Health Innovation (CGHI) announced today.
Beginning in 2022, CGHI will open an innovation center, collaborative office and lab space inside four of the 47 stories of Tower Square’s main building. It will utilize 75,000 square feet of the adjacent building, above the North Avenue MARTA Station, as a conference center. The plan is for the health innovation district to expand into additional floors over time.
“You can’t just wave a magic wand and make a building appear, but in this case it’s almost like we did, because sitting right there at the intersection of Tech Square moving south and ‘health square’ marching north is a vacant 47-story tower complex,” Clark Dean, Executive Managing Director at Transwestern In Atlanta, said in a statement.
The health innovation hub is expected to generate jobs, accelerate investment and attract new businesses to the area. CGHI aims for it to become the intersection of global health, health technology and life sciences. An unspecified amount of investment from Sharecare, Transwestern and an anonymous West Coast foundation helped fund the hub’s launch.
The innovation hub will offer labs as well as collaborative workspaces and an innovation center. Image Credit: CGHI
The Global Health Innovation District is the result of an effort by 60 Atlanta global health leaders and 200 community volunteers across organizations such as the Metro Atlanta Chamber, Deloitte, Georgia Bio and the Georgia Global Health Alliance, the latter two of which merged to form CHGI.
The initiative lands in Midtown Atlanta’s thriving ecosystem of anchor institutions bridging technology, healthcare and the arts. Some 30K jobs have come to Midtown since 2015 by way of companies expanding or relocating, with many podium remarks from prior announcements citing the district’s access to talent and unique urban amenities.
The announcement event was attended by City of Atlanta Mayor-Elect Andre Dickens, City Councilperson Amir Farokhi, City Council President-Elect Doug Shipman along with leadership from Sharecare, Transwestern, the Metro Atlanta Chamber and more.
"This is a remarkable feather in Midtown's cap,” Farokhi said of CGHI’s announcement. “This is a neighborhood that is humming and thriving in ways that few urban areas in the country are. It is already the commercial and cultural hub of the South, and I don't say that lightly. Now with Tech Square I think it is in many ways the innovation hub of the South as well."
"This will attract new investments and businesses to come and work, incredible organizations, and life sciences is one of the fastest growing sectors in this country," Dickens said. "I stand here today as Atlanta shows itself again to be a leader on the global stage."
