Overview:
The Porsche Experience Center is marking 10 years since it christened a test track that made its Atlanta headquarters an emphatic punctuation mark on a transformative airport-area development.
Arnall Golden Gregory is the presenting sponsor of Global Atlanta's Germany Channel. Subscribe here for monthly Germany newsletters.
The Porsche Experience Center is marking 10 years since it christened a new Atlanta test track and headquarters that punctuated its transformative airport-area development.
The German sports car brand had opened such an outpost before: It modeled the 20-acre track after the first in Silverstone, England, about an hour’s train ride north of London, and sent the man who designed it here to work his same magic across the pond.
Global Atlanta visited Silverstone in 2011, a year before the Atlanta groundbreaking, to get a taste of the kick-plate, low-friction circle and other carefully crafted twists and turns — all designed to help drivers get the best out of cars prized for their high performance.
For non-aficionados, the facility had a huge branding advantage: It was visible from the air as more than 90 million passengers (now 100 million-plus) descended into Hartsfield-Jackson every year.
Located just off the runways, Porsche could whisk in VIPs and tourists from all over the world, or it could welcome locals driving in for the day to test their mettle.
Later, it would be the place customers and the paying public could experience the thrill of electrification, as the company debuted its Taycan sedan and installed some of the first high-speed chargers in the city.
For the metro area, Porsche was a landmark win, helping demonstrate new possibilities in a traditionally overlooked region.
The track was the centerpiece of Aerotropolis Atlanta, a 27-acre site whose automotive pedigree included the shuttered Hapeville Ford plant, closed in 2011. Jacoby Development, the firm behind Atlantic Station, another successful brownfield redevelopment in Midtown, bought the “impossible” site for $40 million. Its renaissance, Porsche executives said, only became possible through careful collaboration among its various overlapping jurisdictions, which included the City of Atlanta, the airport, Hapeville, Fulton and Clayton counties, and even the Federal Aviation Administration.
“You couldn’t make up a more complex site than this,” former Porsche North America General Counsel Joseph Folz told Global Atlanta at the time.
When it was done, the office — complete with a museum, fine-dining restaurant and cafe overlooking the track — became a gleaming example of how marquee corporates could move from northern suburbs like Sandy Springs (where Porsche set up shop in the 1990s) south of Interstate 20, and how airports could be drivers of 21st-century economic development. Porsche steadily brought in branches of the company, including its finance and consulting arms, as well as the Porsche Classic restoration center.
Later, the experience center was joined by the Kimpton Overland hotel, a favorite plane-spotting hangout for locals, and its track doubled in size during a $50 million, 33-acre expansion that extended its snaking blacktop and introduced a new off-road course for Cayenne and Macan drivers.
On June 7, the experience center will host a 10-year anniversary celebration that will “celebrate the full meaning of Porsche passion” with a kid zone, custom t-shirt station, silent disco, interactive art and much more. General admission tickets are $50, as are ride-alongs with Porsche instructors for the same price. Drive in the simulator for $20. Purchase tickets here