How can an office campus from the late 1970s compete against the newest office towers in Atlanta's skyline for tech firms? One Atlanta landlord is hoping 100-gigabit internet speeds is the answer.
The Ardent Cos. has struck a partnership with AT&T in Atlanta to roll out a total of 100-gigabit speeds — bandwidth more often found in data centers than bread-and-butter office buildings — at some of its Piedmont Center office properties. It is part of Ardent's effort to lure high-tech companies as tenants into the buildings off Piedmont Road in the heart of Buckhead,
The Ardent Cos. Managing Director Scott Werbel said. “When we were sitting there, we said we should have the fastest available [internet] in the marketplace, and we should use that as a tool to attract younger companies,” Werbel said.
Ardent purchased the four-building block, called Piedmont Center 1-4, for more than $140M in August from Northwestern Mutual. Ardent, in a joint venture with Cone Middour Partners, purchased The Fountains at Piedmont Center last year as well. AT&T had installed an upgraded fiber network into Piedmont Center 1-4 as part of a larger national rollout of upgraded fiber cables back in 2012, AT&T Senior Fiber Manager Jackson Land said.
The new program — which will officially launch at the start of the new year — will give Ardent the ability to parcel out up to 100 gigabits of AT&T network access to tenants for an additional fee.