Business View Magazine | November 2019

309 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2019 hub now called Curiosity Lab at Peachtree Corners. Curiosity Lab is a world-class living laboratory for testing autonomous vehicles and smart city technology in a real-world environment. The new city was the dream of Georgia Tech graduate and developer, Paul Duke, in the late 1960s. His vision of creating the planned community of Peachtree Corners included Technology Park Atlanta, a campus of low-rise buildings for high technology industries with the goal of keeping graduating students in the area. Today, Technology Park continues to attract high-tech and Fortune 500 companies, drawing top-tiered engineering talent from across the country. Peachtree Corners is also the headquarters for many regional, national, and international corporations that thrive in the pro-business environment, which offers a zero millage rate. Business View Magazine spoke with City Manager, Brian Johnson, and Betsy Plattenburg, Executive Director of Curiosity Lab, about the amazing Curiosity Lab at Peachtree Corners – an innovative environment that opened on Sept. 11, 2019 and is, literally, driving the advancement of technology. The following is an edited transcript of that conversation. BVM: How did the Curiosity Lab come into being? Johnson: “Our city is only seven years old and has a population of about 45,000 people, but we also have about 45,000 jobs. We are a major regional job hub, to a large degree, because of Technology Park Atlanta. It sits on over 500 acres, with more than 7,500 workers, and over 1,000 residents. It was where the modem and the color printer were invented; Scientific Atlanta (now Cisco) was founded here. It has made its mark on technology, but that success and the economic activities that emanate from this technology park are also a very important part of Peachtree Corners. Because it generates so much business activity and sales tax, it’s one of the reasons we can be a full-service city with no property tax. The city is very sensitive to making sure we protect, and foster, and cultivate support within the Park and the technology industry, wherever we can, which is what led us to PEACHTREE CORNERS , GEORGI A City Manager, Brian Johnson Executive Director of Curiosity Lab, Betsy Plattenburg