Georgia Tech has new details on a plan to expand its campus in Cobb County.
It wants to buy 32 acres of land on the Lockheed Martin South Campus in Marietta. Then, it wants to renovate the buildings on that land to support tech research in national security, homeland defense and commercial advanced technology initiatives.
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Georgia Tech announced their plan to buy this land in June of 2016, but presented the proposal to the Georgia Board of Regents on Aug. 8 with new details as to their funding mechanism.
It plans to use lease revenue bond financing to acquire the land. The total project’s cost is approximately $62.8 million.
Rob Fuller, Lockheed Martin’s communications senior manager, says the aerospace company used to make full use of its campus in its heyday of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
“There were upwards of 30,000 people who worked here and now, we don’t have that large of a footprint. So, we’re reducing that footprint and this is part of that process,” Fuller says.
He says this deal can be mutually beneficial to both parties.
“This is an opportunity for them to take that property and those facilities and use them for their needs,” he says. “And it’s an opportunity for us to reduce that footprint and, of course, take that off our capital budget.”
The area Georgia Tech wants to buy used to house operations for the F-22 Raptor fighter jet, a program that finished in 2013. The university is also trying to acquire 20 acres of undeveloped land to the south, but that project isn’t included in this proposal. Georgia Tech wants to acquire in total about 52 acres of the Lockheed Martin campus.
The Board of Regents still has to approve the land sale. Georgia Tech officials say the board will vote on this sale this fall.
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