Norfolk Southern renews Midtown Atlanta headquarters lease
Norfolk Southern has signed a nearly $500 million, five-year lease renewal at its Midtown corporate headquarters, according to a Thursday filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The move comes as the Atlanta-based railroad company is in the process of seeking regulator approval for a merger with Omaha-based Union Pacific.
The transaction would consolidate the two under the Union Pacific brand into the country’s first transcontinental railroad company, headquartered in Nebraska.
Under the proposed plan, more than half the Midtown headquarters’ management employee headcount would either relocate to Omaha or lose their jobs, the filing said.
The company opened the 750,000-square-foot building on a 3.4-acre campus in Tech Square in 2021, after relocating its headquarters to Atlanta from Virginia.
The building is also home of the railroad’s network operations center staffed by unionized train dispatchers, which the merger application states will ultimately relocate to Omaha.
But in an interview last month Norfolk Southern CEO Mark George said the companies had no plans to leave Midtown, even if a merger is approved.
“We don’t have any plans for a change right now,” George said during a joint interview with Union Pacific CEO Jim Vena of the Midtown location.
“It’s a great building.”
Norfolk Southern has built a close relationship with nearby Georgia Tech, including partnerships on AI-driven safety innovation.
The institution will be “heavily relied upon by the combined company,” he said.
“When you put that all in the mix, Atlanta is real important to us. It will be significant, and we will have a lot of employees there still,” Vena said.
Both CEOs told the AJC the companies are already acting to proactively prevent as many job losses in both staffs as possible through attrition.
Union Pacific has already promised all unionized employees will be guaranteed a job at the new company.
George insisted that Union Pacific will remain a prominent corporate resident in Atlanta post-merger.
“We had a huge presence in Atlanta and Georgia before the headquarters moved there. And even after we consummate this merger, we’re going to have a huge presence,” he said.
After regulators ruled their initial application was incomplete earlier this year, the companies have vowed to refile by the end of the month and hope to complete the process in 2027.
About the Author
As a business reporter, Emma Hurt leads coverage of the Atlanta airport, Delta Air Lines, UPS, Norfolk Southern and other travel and logistics companies. Prior to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution she worked as an editor and Atlanta reporter for Axios, a politics reporter for WABE News and a business reporter for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
