Balfour Beatty gives 109-year-old Coca-Cola plant a modern facelift

Dive Brief:

• London-based Balfour Beatty has completed 560 Edgewood, an adaptive reuse project in Atlanta that turned one of Coca-Cola’s first bottling facilities into a modern mixed-use space for Charlotte, North Carolina-based Asana Partners, the contractor announced on March 21.
• As construction manager at risk, Balfour Beatty transformed the 1915 building to accommodate 60,000 square feet of flexible space to meet the retail, lifestyle and creative office needs of the surrounding neighborhood, according to the release.
• The project team deployed modern technologies to transform the historic building, including a tool that optimized the pull planning process digitally. With the program, Balfour Beatty and its partners could access and update plans in real time, per the release.

Dive Insight:

Coca-Cola’s roots in Atlanta go back to the 1880s, when Dr. John Pemberton poured the first glass of the iconic drink in Jacob’s Pharmacy at the intersection of what is now Marietta and Peachtree streets. The beverage giant still maintains its corporate headquarters in the Georgia capital.

Balfour Beatty combined original design elements with modern additions that included upgrading existing windows and the brick façade to preserve the building’s historic industrial design. It also reused materials to meet sustainability goals, such as existing brick from the building’s structure and precast double T concrete beams.

Modern touches came in the form of private parking on a 104-car deck and a rooftop amenity with downtown skyline views.

“Our experts, in collaboration with our design and trade partners, skillfully preserved the building’s historical charm while creating an integrated mixed-use environment on time and within budget,” said Mike Macon, Balfour Beatty senior vice president in Georgia, in the release.