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TK Elevator’s new test tower in Cobb County, which officially opened Wednesday night, is engineer’s paradise where stainless steel boxes are revered like precious artifacts.
A digital experience area in the German-owned company’s lobby was inspired by science museums, outfitted with large touchscreens that enable customers and visitors alike to see different elevator solutions and their parts in action. It also features an immersive content area, buttons activating scaled models of TKE’s mechanical systems and a module highlighting its AGILE system — a touchscreen panel that optimizes the routing of elevators to different floors.
Through large windows, visitors can also look down on the company’s testing and qualification area — a working lab with 18 shafts running up the concrete building’s 420 feet, where technicians can check everything from acoustics to barometric pressure. The lab also doubles as a demonstration area for current and prospective customers.
With all this, it’s no surprise that self-professed “elevator guy” and CEO Kevin Lavallee was drawn to Atlanta not only because of the unique site at the stadium-anchored development at The Battery Atlanta, but also due to what he called the city’s “STEM community.”
Mr. Lavallee spoke to a few hundred people gathered at a soiree bedecked in TKE’s signature orange and purple, complete with balloon arches and elevator rides to the top of the new test tower, where an event space (soon to be open for rentals) offers a uniquely panoramic view of the city.
The kickoff was designed to celebrate the 900 jobs pledged and $200 million invested on the new complex, which includes the tower, 80,000 square feet for business services in a second space and a 155,000-square-foot headquarters in an adjacent building shared with the recently relocated global headquarters of pizza franchisor Papa John’s.
Gov. Brian Kemp was on hand for the occasion, joking in his remarks he doesn’t do many ribbon-cuttings that are also cocktail parties. But he said Georgia had reason to be excited about landing the North American base for the giant that known as Thyssenkrupp Elevator until it was spun off in a private-equity deal valued at 17.2 billion euros.
“It’s a big deal when you get somebody’s corporate headquarters,” he said.
Mr. Kemp also used his speech to tout Georgia’s historically low unemployment rate, positioning the state’s pro-business approach coming out of the COVID malaise as a winning formula.
“Right now we have the least amount of people on our unemployment rolls that we have had since post 9/11, and job creators like TKE are a big part of this success,” the governor said.
And he noted that more corporate research centers are moving in from places like Silicon Valley and Boston, a notion seconded by Cobb Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Sharon Mason, who has watched the tower sprout from the ground from the chamber’s office a few doors over.
“For us, this really is the centerpiece of innovation,” Ms. Mason said.
That’s what TK Elevator is banking on, said Mr. Lavallee, who noted that growing a pipeline of workers from a young age was as much of a draw to Atlanta as its connected airport and the unique branding opportunity provided by the tallest building in the county — now outfitted with a digital “mesh” spanning eight floors that can greet up to 300 million drivers per year with LED messages (and might even celebrate Braves home runs during baseball season).
Thyssenkrupp for years operated a now-closed innovation center at Georgia Tech, but the campus in Cobb takes this theme to a new level by bringing in-house R&D and training in addition to business functions.
On a tour of the facility after the presentations, Mr. Lavallee was most energized by sections that showcased how elevators can contribute to urban mobility and sustainability, as well as those focused on technical training.
That’s fitting for an executive who got his start in what he simply calls “the trade” when accompanying his father on elevator service calls as a young boy. Growing up in Canada, his friends idolized hockey players like Wayne Gretzky while he was tracking elevator entrepreneurs. He worked first in the industry as a technician.
The trade has become a much flashier business since then, as TK Elevator’s latest innovations show. Its MAX service gives operators access to real-time data, enabling predictive maintenance to minimize downtime. Other recent innovations include TWIN, a system where two elevators occupy the same shaft, and MULTI, a ropeless elevator that can move laterally as well as vertically. MULTI’s ability to move elevator cars into basement storage offers the building owner more leasable space by reducing the number of shafts.
But the crown jewel of the complex, as far as Mr. Lavallee is concerned, is the International Technical Services training facility, where TK Elevator technicians are trained to service all competing elevators’ systems in a room chock full of working modules. A global network of eight ITS training centers around the world underpins a robust services business for a company that grew into a global behemoth by acquiring many smaller firms and integrating them.
“I love all my children equally, but this one’s my favorite,” Mr. Lavallee joked while approaching the area.
He hopes to inspire in Atlanta’s young people similar enthusiasm in the STEM fields, exciting them about the technical underpinnings of an industry that generally goes unnoticed unless a problem arises. The plan is to host field trips for school children and recruit interns and staff from local universities.
“We really have partnered with Cobb County, with elementary schools. We want to bring in the young boys and girls in fifth and sixth grades, and get them to say what everybody else is saying: ‘What is that building? Who is TKE?’” Mr. Lavallee said in his welcome remarks. “You know what TKE is? It’s a school for STEM, a school for sales professionals, a school for elevator technicians.”
In other words, he wants to create a lot of elevator guys and gals — and if TKE’s people have been able to achieve such success without a gleaming building, he says, imagine what it can do with a $200 million monument to innovation.
“Watch the next 20 years; it’s going to be fantastic.”
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