Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanentewill plant a $20 million information technology campus in Midtown Atlanta — a project that will create about 900 jobs.
The Invest Atlanta board approved unanimously at its meeting Thursday $300,000 in incentives for “Project Big Chill,” as the expansion project was codenamed.
Eloisa Klementich, managing director of business development for Invest Atlanta, said Atlanta competed with Colorado for the Kaiser Permanente project.
In December 2014, Atlanta Business Chronicle first reported the health care provider and medical insurer was scouting Atlanta buildings for the 150,000 square-foot project. In March 2105, the Chronicle reported Kaiser had zeroed in on Midtown’s Pershing Point Plaza.
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Kaiser employs 4,000 in Georgia and has 30 medical facilities in metro Atlanta and Athens, Ga. In 2011, the company announced plans to invest about $100 million in building two new medical specialty centers in the region.
Kaiser’s expansion will burnish Atlanta’s reputation as a health-care IT industry cluster. More than 200 health IT companies operate in Georgia, employing about 16,000.
“The decision that Kaiser has made is going to send a signal to the market because (it is) one of the leading healthcare organizations, not just in the United States, but in the world,” Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said. “For them to locate a technology center in Midtown Atlanta really does send a message (about the region’s talent pool).”
Kaiser’s Atlanta technology operation, one of five such centers around the country, is expected to provide IT services around electronic medical record systems, patient medical records, cybersecurity, mobile, consumer technologies and back-office infrastructure, according to a source.
The center would employ solutions architects, business consultants, software developers, project managers and programming analysts. The jobs would pay an average wage of about $107,000. Hiring would begin later this year and be spread over three years, the source said.
The expansion will generate $3 million in new annual tax income for Atlanta.
Atlanta’s abundant — and inexpensive — technology talent has made it a magnet for IT and software development hubs. Several companies, including CBS Corp., General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM), Deloitte LLP and Elavon have established IT centers in the “Silicon Peach.”
Kaiser’s Midtown Atlanta location also puts the IT center in proximity to research and talent powerhouses Georgia Tech and Emory University.
“I want to give a shout out to Bernard Tyson, the CEO of Kaiser Permanente,” Reed said after the Invest Atlanta board voted. Tyson has one son who has graduated fromMorehouse College and another one who is currently attending Morehouse. “He’s a Morehouse man.”
Date: April 16, 2015