Surgical Robot Maker to Become City’s Biggest Employer with $540M Campus Expansion

A top manufacturer of surgical robots is planning a $540 million expansion of its local campus into a national hub that will make it the largest employer in the city by far and one of the biggest in Gwinnett.

Intuitive Surgical’s expansion on its Data Drive campus aims to bring 1,200 net new jobs at an average wage of around $130,000 a year. State and local governments are helping with an estimated total of roughly $67.8 million in grants, tax breaks, fee waivers and other assistance.
The multibillion-dollar California company’s local growth is good news, according to local officials and a surgeon who uses its robots.

“We are thrilled that Intuitive recognized the benefits of being located in Peachtree Corners, and we are grateful to have their growing campus in our city,” said Mayor Mike Mason in an August press release announcing the deal. “Peachtree Corners is a major regional technology hub with great homes, great schools and great community amenities, so we are confident that Intuitive will be very pleased with their decision to expand their presence here.”

Dr. Manu Sancheti, the Chief of Thoracic Surgery at Emory Saint Joseph’s Hospital in Sandy Springs, uses Intuitive’s robots daily. He trains other surgeons in the robotic techniques at the Peachtree Corners campus, and his kids attend Wesleyan School nearby.

“I think it’s going to be a really good opportunity for the community,” Sancheti said in a recent interview. “I think it’s going to be a really exciting place for robotic surgical education.”
“We were thrilled to learn Intuitive has chosen to expand their presence in Gwinnett County,” Governor Brian Kemp said in the press release. “With our advanced medical environment, dynamic workforce, pro-business policies and thriving economy, Intuitive made the right decision in choosing Georgia.”

Set to become a top local employer

The Peach State continues to attract world-renowned companies like Intuitive, and this huge investment coming to the new Peachtree Corners campus will benefit hundreds of hard-working Georgians across metro Atlanta.

The company’s massive boost in local presence from nearly 200 jobs to 1,200-plus is expected to happen sometime between 2024 and 2031, according to press statements and state documents. That would take it to the top of local employer lists. According to the City, the biggest private employer in town today is CarMax with 600 workers, followed by Soliant, which last year announced 598 jobs in a headquarters move.

Based on data on the website of the economic development agency Partnership Gwinnett, Intuitive would become the county’s sixth-largest employer overall and fourth largest in the private sector. Today’s top public employer is Gwinnett County Public Schools at 23,300 and the biggest private employer is Northside Hospital at 4,650.

Founded in 1995, Intuitive is now headquartered in Sunnyvale in California’s Silicon Valley. The company is a pioneer of robotic surgery with its Da Vinci line of spider-like, multi-armed robots. It also recently introduced the Ion, another robotic device to explore and biopsy the lungs.

Robotic surgery offers superior healthcare

Sancheti, who is also Emory Healthcare’s Head of Robotic Thoracic Surgery, uses both types of robots. He says the highly dexterous arms hold a camera, a light and various surgical devices like scalpels and staplers, which he remotely manipulates inside the patient’s body while viewing an enlarged 3D version on a screen, much like playing a very serious video game.

The big advantage of the robots, Sancheti says, are much smaller incisions, since only small robot arms rather than human hands enter the body. “It allows me to do the surgery almost as if my hands were within that body cavity without making a big incision,” he said.

Robotic surgery on the heart or lungs is done through incisions around 8 to 12 millimeters long — less than a half-inch. Compare that with 8- to 12-inch cuts for traditional surgery, which often also requires spreading or breaking some ribs. The robotic version, Sancheti says, means much less pain, faster recovery and less use of potentially addictive narcotic painkillers.

Those advantages have made for a booming business that put Intuitive into an expansion mode. The company is planning a similar campus expansion at its headquarters, which began moving through Sunnyvale’s local approval processes at the same time Peachtree Corner’s deal was announced. Jennifer Garnett, a spokesperson for the City of Sunnyvale, said the company’s growth is welcome there, too.

“Since their start here in 2002, Intuitive Surgical has grown to become Sunnyvale’s seventh-largest employer and is among our 25 largest sales tax producers,” she said. “Their long-standing support of the Sunnyvale community through their employees’ volunteerism and the Intuitive Foundation has been equally important. For example, the foundation donated $200,000 in 2020 to the City’s nearly $3 million Sunnyvale Cares program to support nonprofits and small businesses during the height of the pandemic.”

Peachtree Corners nurtures company growth

According to a company spokesperson, Intuitive came to Peachtree Corners in 2013 with 15 employees and has grown to nearly 200 workers. The local campus “serves as our primary training site for surgeons and care teams, and the area’s amenities, quality of life and universities provide us access to a strong and diverse talent pool,” the company said in a written statement.

The current local headquarters is 5655 Spalding Drive, at the intersection with Data Drive. But Intuitive owns six buildings on roughly 39 acres of land along Data Drive between Spalding and Triangle Parkway, with a lake in the middle. That’s the expansion area.

“The expansion provides office workspace, training for our clients and our internal staff, engineering supporting manufacturing, manufacturing space and all of the campus amenities found at a major Intuitive hub, like Sunnyvale,” the company’s statement said. “The initial Phase 2 expansion will provide approximately 700,000 gross square feet of facilities. The ultimate campus build-out will likely be much larger, but is still in planning.”

The company had no illustrations of the campus concepts to offer, but gave a brief description: “The campus will be a series of interconnected buildings, gardens, terraces, a lake and wooded, natural spaces, like those seen on many academic and corporate campuses. The design will promote a healthy lifestyle with broad accessibility for all staff and guests.”

The exact timing remains to be seen. The announcement in August spoke of completion in 2024, while the formal incentives deal in state documents estimated completion by Dec. 31, 2026, and gives the company seven years starting in June 2024 to fulfill the jobs promise. Under the terms of the deal, the company must maintain 183 existing, full-time jobs and maintain operations on the campus for at least 10 years.

In exchange, Intuitive is being offered “cost savings and cost avoidances” estimated by the Georgia Department of Economic Development to be worth $67,745,530. The company could get a little more if it exceeds the promises and less or nothing if it doesn’t.

Among the assistance is a $2 million state Regional Economic Business Assistance grant to offset costs of property, machinery and equipment; $29.781 million in jobs tax credits; and a $12 million property tax abatement. The City agreed to waive a total of $3.11 million in regulatory, occupational and stormwater fees, while the county will pay $30,000 to install a pedestrian beacon crossing. The deal even includes the government footing a $2,500 bill for a press release and ribbon cutting.