After initially searching for buildings in Fulton County, along the Georgia 400 highway, General Motors Co. has purchased a Roswell building that will soon become a company technology center. The Detroit-based automaker reportedly paid $18.5 million for the building, which is expected to employ at least 1,000 workers, according to Fulton County records.
Specifically, the building will be converted into a software development center, one of several planned in the United States.
The technology center is almost 230,000 square feet and is located at the corners Mansell and Warsaw roads that UPS once used as the centerpiece of a 25-acre campus designed for information technology, marketing and communications workers.
UPS, which later moved its world headquarters to Sandy Springs, aimed to sell the building at 2010 Warsaw Road for about $21 million, according to the Atlanta Business Chronicle.
GM reportedly chose the former UPS building in Roswell because of its campus setting and its location in a so-called opportunity zone, an area designated by local governments for economic redevelopment incentives because they have a poverty rate of 15 percent or higher. GM is eligible for a tax credit of $3,500 a year for each job it creates by placing a business in an opportunity zone.
Last year, GM said it planned to hire 10,000 computer workers at four new technology innovation centers across the United States, according to the Chronicle.