Business View Magazine | November 2019

314 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2019 initiative.” BVM: How does Curiosity Lab benefit economic development? Johnson: “People are spending money at our hotels, restaurants, shops; that’s exactly why we’re doing it and why we’re prepared to allow the facilities to be used without it being a pay-to-play program. We benefit from the indirect activity, depending on how long you are here. Ultimately, we want a company to like it so much that they want to relocate, expand, or create a business here. And now we’ve got permanent presence; jobs being created or retained; families moving to the city; house values stable or increasing - a community where people want to live, work, learn, and play. “We activated our 5G environment in Tech Park around the same time as downtown Atlanta, largely because we were constructing Curiosity Lab. Sprint (for 5G utilization) and Georgia Power (for smart cities applications) have invested