From the Mayor’s Desk – An Introduction to the 2021 State of the City

While 2021 has continued to be a year where we are all still dealing with effects of the pandemic, I am happy to say that the state of Peachtree Corners is very good.  As a city, Peachtree Corners continues to thrive and grow and provide our citizens with a great quality of life.

As we enter the holiday season and move towards 2022, I want to announce the release of this year’s State of the City address.  This year, we are delivering this address via video, due to COVID, but next year we look forward to doing this again in person.  While the State of the City video will provide a more detailed look at where we are as a city, I wanted to provide a brief overview of why the City and our residents are poised to be even more successful in the upcoming year.

To begin, Peachtree Corners has seen a very rapid recovery following the major outbreaks of the pandemic.  One of the keys to that recovery has been the ability to get people back to work.  During its peak, unemployment in the City reached 5.7%.  Currently, we sit at 3.4% and that number continues to decline.  One thing that helped make this possible was the City’s use of the almost $5 million the City received in CARES Act funding that was used to aid small businesses in their recovery.  We will continue to use an additional $16.4 million in American Rescue Plan Funding.

In addition to the recovery of our businesses, the City continues to work to improve our amenities and quality of life for our residents.  The Town Center continues to be a hub of activity, and as we move into 2022, we plan to continue our offering of an array of events for the public.  We have moved through the fall period with our Sports on the Screen, watched as our Atlanta Braves became World Series Champions and will continue to watch as the Georgia Bulldogs chase a national championship. We will close out the year with our Holiday Glow 2021 on December 3rd.  This event will be even bigger than last year, and we hope you join us as we celebrate with our friends and neighbors.

2022 will bring even more additions to the Town Center.  The City is currently looking to add additional playground equipment near the Veterans monument, as well as some additional seating.  We will continue the construction of the Corners Connector in the Town Center with the addition of a skywalk that will also include stairs that lead to the stream and a boardwalk along the stream’s banks with native plantings.  The City continues to work towards the construction of the Connector with planned segments from Peachtree Corners Circle to Tech Park and along East Jones Bridge Road.

The City continues to see growth and expansion of Curiosity Lab.  In just under two years, the City has worked with numerous national companies including Carmax, Brightree, ASHRAE, Soliant, and most recently Intuitive Surgical.  Intuitive Surgical is currently expanding and is developing their east coast headquarters in Peachtree Corners.  This development will include an investment of over $500M over 5 years in a new campus and the creation of 1,200 new jobs with an average salary of 130k. This expansion will make Intuitive Surgical the City’s largest employer by 2024.     

Curiosity Lab currently has about 14 research projects including the first 5G wireless rollout in the metro Atlanta area.   In 2020, Atlanta was named a French technology hub for French startups, and Peachtree Corners is proud to house the French American Chamber of Commerce headquarters at Curiosity Lab.

With the success of Curiosity Lab, the city will be hosting the V2X Live 2022 conference & exhibition in March of 2022.  The event, presented by T-Mobile and sponsored by Intel, is produced in partnership with the Curiosity Lab and will showcase thought leaders from a wide range of technology ecosystems, including 5G mobility, cloud computing, software innovation, autonomous vehicles, smart city infrastructure and more.

This is just an overview of why Peachtree Corners is in a wonderful position as we enter 2022.  We successfully managed thru the worst of the pandemic—while helping those who have struggled—and we will continue to do that, until we have all fully recovered.  As has been said, “It’s your reaction to adversity, not adversity itself, that determines how your story will be written.” 

I invite you to watch our full State of the City at https://ptccity.com/321KQ6Z and look forward to working with the community as we continue to make Peachtree Corners the best city it can be for our residents and visitors.