Financial tech giant NCR’s plans for its new Midtown Atlanta campus appear to be growing both in size and number of jobs.
The company’s move to a Midtown headquarters is now part of a broader reorganization executives are considering that could bring more than 1,000 additional jobs to Georgia, people familiar with the matter told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Thursday.
The Fortune 500 maker of software, automated tellers and other types of self-serve kiosks is said to be weighing plans that would involve both newly created jobs and a consolidation of its workforce from certain locations outside of Georgia.
NCR announced last year it would move from Gwinnett County to a location near Georgia Tech. It is already working on a tower of about 20 stories and laying plans for a potential second building on the property.
The addition of even more NCR tech workers to Midtown would add momentum to the steady march of companies such as Coca-Cola, Equifax, Kaiser Permanente, Sage Software and others that have put major offices in-town near Georgia Tech and major transit hubs.
The move already underway is expected to put about 3,600 people at the Midtown headquarters.
One person familiar with the company’s discussions said the broader reorganization could add between 1,600 and 1,800 jobs on top of that over the next several years. If NCR were to relocate and create 1,800 new jobs in Georgia, it could trigger what’s known as a mega jobs tax credit that would supersize a potential incentive package.
Discussions are fluid and the jobs figures could change, according to the people familiar with the matter, who declined to be named because they are not authorized to comment.
NCR spokesman Scott Sykes declined to comment.
It was not immediately clear how soon a decision will be made. The AJC first reported online Wednesday that NCR and its developer, Cousins Properties, were considering a second tower in Midtown even as the first tower in the complex is under construction.
NCR CEO Bill Nuti — who is based in New York — has said the intown shift is designed to help the company tap student and faculty talent at Georgia Tech.
The NCR project is currently rising at a site at Eighth and Spring streets near Technology Square in Midtown.
At the time, NCR said it planned to maintain a second office campus in the northern suburbs, in Gwinnett or elsewhere. It is not clear if those plans are still on the table.
NCR had 32,600 employees worldwide as of December. NCR also has a major manufacturing operation in the Columbus area which is not expected to be affected by a consolidation of jobs from elsewhere.
Cousins officials said last week in the company’s second quarter earnings call that the size and cost of the NCR project is fluctuating as a design is finalized.
In response to an analyst’s question concerning Cousins’ portfolio of development sites, Cousins Chief Financial Officer Gregg Adzema said the second phase of the NCR project is “about to start.”
Last year, NCR reportedly considered selling itself before striking a deal in November for a major investment by noted financial firm Blackstone.
Founded in 1884 as National Cash Register in Dayton, Ohio, NCR moved to Gwinnett County in 2009, lured by about $109 million in state and local incentives. It has continued to reinvent itself since the move into more of a software focused company.
NCR is a piece of Georgia’s mammoth financial technology sector. The company is best known for making hardware like cash registers and ATMs.
The industry employs more than 40,000 people in the Peach State, according to the American Transaction Processors Coalition.
