It's been a whirlwind 22 months for Mercedes-Benz USA since it announced its move from New Jersey to metro Atlanta.
The company relocated and hired hundreds of employees. The German luxury carmaker opened a temporary office in Dunwoody. And then in September of last year, the company broke ground on its new home near Abernathy Road and Ga. 400 in Sandy Springs.
On Monday at a hard hat tour for media, MBUSA CEO Dietmar Exler said construction is nearing the finish line, and the $93 million headquarters campus project will open in March on-time and under budget.
The project features essentially a pair of three-story office buildings joined by a grand glass atrium. The campus comprises more than 200,000 square feet of office space on 12 acres, and features a conference center, child care facility, cafeteria, coffee bar and a walking trail.
The Gensler-designed headquarters is open and airy in design and stresses shared workspace.
“This is less about me-space and more about we-space,” Exler said.
Skanska is the project construction manager and JLL is Mercedes’ broker and project manager.
Mercedes is one of the biggest names recruited to the Atlanta area in years. The company over time is expected to employ about 1,000 in Sandy Springs.
A number of employees from the company’s information technology unit, dealer support operations and 24-hour roadside assistance call center remain in New Jersey and are expected to relocate to Sandy Springs this summer. Those parts of the business are the most sensitive and the company wanted to keep disruptions to a minimum
“[They have] equipment you really don’t want to move twice,” Exler said of the units remaining in New Jersey.
Mercedes and the state announced the company’s relocation to Georgia from New Jersey in January 2015.
Few new companies in metro Atlanta have made as much of a marketing splash as Mercedes has in that time, signing a deal to put its name on the new Atlanta Falcons stadium, which opened this past summer.
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