TechSquare Labs announced 25,000-square-feet of coworking space and corporate innovation labs at Technology Square in Midtown Atlanta near Georgia Tech. The group purchased the 15,000-square-foot building at 859 Spring Street that was formerly an Office Depot and the group leased 10,000-square-feet within the Square On Fifth apartment building at 848 Spring Street. Both spaces are currently pre-leasing and will be open this summer.

“When you just have your laptop and a dream, you need a place to go,” said Paul Judge, cofounder of TechSquare Labs. “Too many people leave Atlanta or give up on their dream at the earliest stage because they do not have a place to go to be around other dreamers and doers. We started TechSquare Labs to fix that.”

TechSquare Labs was founded a year ago in March 2014 by Paul Judge and Allen Nance as a company building studio. The TechSquare Labs company building strategy has two pillars: 1) technical founders and 2) corporate innovation. The coworking space is focused on providing an inspirational atmosphere for technical founders to build technology and develop products. The corporate innovation labs are focused on helping large companies innovate like small companies. 

The coworking space is 10,000-square-feet and is located within the 25-story Square On Fifth apartment building. This building is special because it will be the residence for nearly 600 students that desire to be entrepreneurs. In addition to coworking space, the building includes event space and a rooftop deck overlooking Georgia Tech to host meetups and other startup events. This is the first student residential building in the country with coworking and company building space.

The corporate innovation labs provide an opportunity for large enterprises to interact with the startup ecosystem. With 27 Fortune 1000 companies in Atlanta, there is a need for a place where corporate innovation meets the startup ecosystem meets smart students. The 15,000-square-foot former Office Depot is being transformed into this innovation hub with corporate innovation labs, brainstorming rooms, and private offices. 

“Large companies need to constantly innovate to remain successful,” said Allen Nance, cofounder of TechSquare Labs. “No one wants to be disrupted like Netflix and Redbox did to Blockbuster. We want to create an environment where Atlanta continues to innovate and we build large companies that create thousands of jobs.”

The TechSquare Labs partners have cofounded, advised or invested in several leading tech companies including Pindrop Security, Springbot, Ionic Security, Monsieur, and WhatCounts. TechSquare Labs’ portfolio company REscour recently announced a $1.3 million seed round and was named winner of ‘Best B2B startup’ at Jason Calacanis’ LAUNCH Festival. There are three other portfolio companies currently in stealth mode.