Mitsubishi bringing 198 jobs to Gwinnett (Atlanta, Lawrenceville: quality of life, living in, mall)

[tonygeorgia]

Mitsubishi Electric Cooling & Heating will break ground Friday on a division headquarters in Suwanee, Ga.

The more than 500,000-square-foot facility at 1340 Satellite Blvd. will employ 198. Mitsubishi is investing about $25 million in the relocation and expansion. Atlanta Business Chronicle first reported on Mitsubishi's plans in August.

[arjay57]

Gwinnett just keeps on booming.

[MathmanMathman]

Originally Posted by arjay57

Gwinnett just keeps on booming.

They need to keep it down!

[ATLTJL]

Land it plentiful and the quality of life is good.

A 500,000 square foot facility would probably be impossible in any of the decent intown areas.

Heaven help the poor people who move to work at this facility when they come here to ask about where to live. I can just now see 198 new posters fending off suggestions of living in Decatur and Kirkwood so they don't have to waste their lives sitting in their cars commuting.

[testa50]

I'm feeling more and more like Gwinnett is the only suburban county in the metro that has its act together. It's actually investing lots of money in a major limited access highway (Sugarloaf Parkway), which will give it a very un-Atlanta-like (read: good) freeway system in the near future. It's also implementing two DDIs. When the TIA funding list came out, Gwinnett's project list probably made more sense than anyone's (although the south side of the county kind of got hosed).

If I were a major industrial outfit, I would strongly consider Gwinnett.

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by testa50

I'm feeling more and more like Gwinnett is the only suburban county in the metro that has its act together. It's actually investing lots of money in a major limited access highway (Sugarloaf Parkway), which will give it a very un-Atlanta-like (read: good) freeway system in the near future. It's also implementing two DDIs. When the TIA funding list came out, Gwinnett's project list probably made more sense than anyone's (although the south side of the county kind of got hosed).

If I were a major industrial outfit, I would strongly consider Gwinnett.

I dunno ... Cobb has been pretty good about adding to its own local infrastructure. The Big Shanty Extension:

Cobb County Government

and the Windy Hill-Macland Road Connector

Cobb County Government

are recent new limited access 4-lane roadway projects (about 2 miles long each) that connect points in the county that really needed a road connection.

What's a DDI?

[ATLTJL]

Can you explain what you mean about Sugarloaf Parkway becoming a limited access highway?

I'm not aware of any such plan.

[testa50]

DDI = Diverging Diamond Interchange

Diverging diamond interchange - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yes, I agree those are both pretty good projects, but Sugarloaf Parkway is really something else. It's a 6-mile, limited access extension of the road, five miles of which are complete. The interchanges they are building are very high grade and high capacity. It is one mile from having an interchange with SR 316, which is going to be a huge deal and completely change the way people get around that part of the county.

Planning ahead, they have the ROW to go all the way to I-85. I don't know if they plan to go all the way to I-985 (which would be awesome), but either way that's pretty big.

I don't know, Gwinnett just seems to be doing a lot better at avoiding infighting and making significant investments. Cobb has, of course, attracted numerous medium-sized economic development projects, which is good, and has a number of really nice features. But it seems to be a good bit more polarized, or at least it's portrayed that way.

[ericsonga]

Gwinnett County, GA: Sugarloaf Pkwy Extension

The new part of Sugarloaf Parkway from SR 20 to 316 is limited access...meaning there are no intersections, just interchanges. Also, the plan is to continue Sugarloaf back up to 85, run next to the Mall of Georgia, cross Buford Dr, cross 985, and then end by connecting to Peachtree Industrial in Sugar Hill. It's pretty impressive really.

[cwkimbro]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

Can you explain what you mean about Sugarloaf Parkway becoming a limited access highway?

I'm not aware of any such plan.

Its already partially built.

The plan isn't to transform what is built into a limited access highway, but to make the extension of it to 316 and then further north to the Mall of Georgia and Peachtree Industrial a small limited access road similar to Ronald Reagan Pkwy.

Basically east of the Grayson Highway (20) to 316 and northward would be limited access.

You can see the first part of the alignment and the first 2 (and 3rd being constructed) interchanges in this aerial image: Lawrenceville, ga - Google Maps

One word of warning though...

Like Ronald Reagon pkwy... This isn't designed to be a major freeway to add to the existing freeway network. It is designed as a cheaper alternative to upgrading alot of the existing rural, but suburbanizing local road network and making expensive changes to some parallel roads (like parts of 20 and 124 north of Lawrenceville). This will take alot of stress off existing roads w/o changing them.