Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens’ patience is beginning to run thin with Microsoft and its paused promise to bring 15,000 jobs to a planned campus on the city’s Westside.
In 2020, Microsoft paid $150 million for 90 acres in the Grove Park neighborhood, where the tech giant planned to build a sprawling corporate campus that would revitalize the surrounding neighborhoods. But that vision, which would have leaped Microsoft into the upper echelon of Atlanta’s employers, was indefinitely halted a year ago so the company could re-evaluate its real estate holdings in response to the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on office usage.
Dickens recently told Bloomberg that Microsoft needs to hurry up and decide what to do with its site, located just south of Westside Park and roughly four miles northwest of downtown Atlanta. He said he will soon reach out to company leaders to request an update and ask about their intention to resume plans for the corporate hub or whether they’d allow the land to be used for something else.
“We really want them to develop their property or offer it back to us so we can develop it. Even if you don’t know what you want to do, just let us know what you know you won’t be able to do,” Dickens told Bloomberg. A city spokesperson confirmed Dickens’ statements to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Microsoft declined to comment Friday. A company spokesperson told the AJC last year that Microsoft had not abandoned the land or placed it up for sale, adding that the company still aimed to fulfill certain promised community benefit projects on the site.
The Redmond, Washington-based company previously set aside a quarter of the 90 acres for neighborhood-focused projects, including much-desired affordable housing, retail and a grocery store.
“We intend to re-engage in planning efforts when expansion is warranted,” the prior statement said.
According to the Atlanta Business Chronicle, Microsoft recently was able to get state approval to extend an environmental cleanup deadline for the Grove Park site to the end of 2029. The news outlet reported that nearly the entire 90-acre site is currently undergoing that process.
Dickens told the AJC last year that he was caught off-guard by Microsoft’s decision to halt its campus development. He said the project’s announcement sparked “economic consequences for the surrounding communities,” leading to a spike in property values and fears of gentrification as developers flooded the area to prepare for Microsoft’s arrival.
From 2020 to 2023, Grove Park saw its home values shoot up 55% and several other nearby neighborhoods saw similar increases, according to data from Zillow. The seven neighborhoods surrounding Microsoft’s land holdings, most of which consist of predominantly Black communities, all saw more home price appreciation than the city of Atlanta as a whole.
Microsoft continues to occupy a two-tower campus in Atlantic Station, which has the capacity for 2,000 employees — even though many continue to work hybrid schedules. Microsoft, which allows many of its employees to work half of their time remotely, leases the buildings through 2035.
The company also operates three data center campuses in metro Atlanta, recently buying more than 20 acres in south Fulton County to expand its Palmetto facility.
The AJC previously reported that two Microsoft data centers received about $31 million in property tax breaks from the Development Authority of Fulton County in recent years and the developer of Microsoft’s Atlantic Station offices also received about $9.2 million in tax savings from the Fulton agency.
The company previously said it would apply for incentives to develop its Grove Park campus. No discretionary state incentives were offered, but it’s unclear if any local incentives were on the table before the project was paused.
