Peachtree Corners is a city in Gwinnett County, Georgia, United States. It is part of the Atlanta metropolitan area, and is the largest city in Gwinnett County with a population of 42,243 as of the 2020 U.S. census.
Peachtree Corners is the only Atlanta northern suburb developed as a planned community. The city is bordered to the north and west by the Chattahoochee River and is located east of Dunwoody.
History Settlement Prior to 1818, the western corner of what became Gwinnett County was Creek and Cherokee territory, and it was illegal for white families to settle there. Nevertheless, there were several families of white squatters in the area before settlement was legalized. In the early 1800s, a road was built along a Native American trail from what is now Buford, past what is now Peachtree Corners, to what is now Atlanta. A small farming community, known as "Pinckneyville," grew up along that road. By 1827, the community was home to the second school in Gwinnett County, the Washington Academy, founded on what is now Spalding Drive. The area was also home to a post office, saloon, blacksmith shop, carpenter shop and inn; however, the prosperity of Pinckneyville was to be short-lived.
In 1870, a railroad was built through neighboring Norcross, and due to the heavy trading that could be done via the railroad, all of the area's businesses and many residents moved from Pinckneyville to Norcross.
Urban development For the next century, the area remained a rural farming community. In the late 1960s, Paul Duke developed the idea of creating Peachtree Corners, a planned community to be constructed in the area that was once known as Pinckneyville. In 1967, Duke initiated the planning of the office component of Peachtree Corners: Technology Park Atlanta, a campus for high technology industries that would benefit from employing engineers and business people graduating from the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), the University of Georgia, and other universities with technology and business schools. As a member of the Georgia Tech National Advisory Board, he raised $1.7 million to develop the business center. Initial residents of the technology park included GE, Scientific Atlanta (now part of Cisco Systems), and Hayes Microcomputer Products. In 1968, Duke established Peachtree Corners, Inc., a development corporation for the residential parts of the community.
During the 1970s, Jim Cowart began to develop the neighborhoods that Duke had planned. Initial neighborhoods developed by Cowart included Peachtree Station, Chattahoochee Station, and Spalding Corners. During this period, Cowart developed more upscale housing and laid more sewer pipes than the rest of Gwinnett County.
Incorporation The United Peachtree Corners Civic Association (UPCCA), an umbrella group of neighborhood homeowners' associations, was formed in 1993 in response to land use and development concerns in the area. Despite the efforts of the UPCCA, some development opposed by the UPCCA continued in Peachtree Corners throughout the 1990s; therefore, in 1999, the idea of incorporating Peachtree Corners was first proposed. Nonetheless, due to the complexity of existing law, an incorporation movement did not then materialize. A city of Peachtree Corners was again proposed by the UPCCA in 2005, but efforts were abandoned after a straw survey of some residents seemed to indicate that the majority did not support incorporation.
In 2010 the UPCCA again pursued the incorporation of Peachtree Corners after a failed attempt by the city of Norcross to annex a portion of Technology Park Atlanta. In a referendum held on November 8, 2011, residents of Peachtree Corners voted to incorporate as Gwinnett County's 16th city, and, with a population of 43,059, it became the county's largest. Municipal operations began on July 1, 2012.
Geography
Peachtree Corners is located in the western corner of Gwinnett County, 21 miles (33 km) from downtown Atlanta. Seven miles of the Chattahoochee River define the northern and western border of Peachtree Corners, and it is bordered by the cities of Dunwoody, Doraville, and Sandy Springs (DeKalb and Fulton counties) on the west, Buford Highway and Norcross city limits on the south, Roswell and Johns Creek (both in Fulton County) across the Chattahoochee River on the north, and the city limits of Berkeley Lake and Duluth on the east.
Demographics 2020 census
As of the 2020 census, Peachtree Corners had a population of 42,243. The median age was 36.5 years. 23.0% of residents were under the age of 18 and 12.3% of residents were 65 years of age or older. For every 100 females there were 94.4 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over there were 91.8 males age 18 and over.
100.0% of residents lived in urban areas, while 0.0% lived in rural areas.
There were 17,071 households and 10,668 families; 32.2% had children under the age of 18 living in them. Of all households, 44.9% were married-couple households, 19.8% were households with a male householder and no spouse or partner present, and 29.0% were households with a female householder and no spouse or partner present. About 28.2% of all households were made up of individuals and 6.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.
There were 18,028 housing units, of which 5.3% were vacant. The homeowner vacancy rate was 1.3% and the rental vacancy rate was 7.4%.
+Peachtree Corners racial composition as of 2020RaceNum.Perc.White20,01347.4%Black or African American9,79523.2%American Indian and Alaska Native2610.6%Asian3,9679.4%Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander270.1%Some other race3,8329.1%Two or more races4,34810.3%Hispanic or Latino (of any race)7,66118.1%
2017–2019 estimates Since Peachtree Corners was not a city or a census-designated place at the time, no demographic data is available for the city from the 2010 U.S. census. However, the city contains ZIP code 30092, which in 2017 had an average adjusted gross income (AGI) of $69,905 per household. The median home price in 2017 for Peachtree Corners was $325,000. The median household income (in 2019 dollars) was $71,149, and the per capita income was $43,783. As of 2017, Peachtree Corners was 60.2% White American, 23.3% African American, 9.6% Asian American, and 2.5% two or more races. Hispanic Americans of any race made up 14% of the population. Those living in the same house more than one year were 86.9% of the population, an average of 2.62 persons lived in each household, of the population 94.1% had a high school diploma or higher, 52.6% had a Bachelor's degree or higher with 19% of the population having a Master's degree or higher, and, not counting library or school supplied computers, 96.5% of the population or above had home computers. ZIP Code 30092 had a population of 38,008 at the 2010 census; however, with parts of ZIP Codes 30071, 30096, 30097, and 30360 being within the city limits of Peachtree Corners, the estimated population of the city was 43,509 in 2017 with a population increase of 14.5% from 2010.
Economy
The economy of Peachtree Corners is largely driven by the concentration of businesses in planned office parks, particularly engineering firms, logistics organizations, health technology groups, and information technology companies.
In October 2014, United Arab Shipping Company relocated its North American Headquarters to Peachtree Corners. The company purchased a 50,000 square foot office building on Spalding Drive for logistics, accounting and customer service operations. In 2017 it merged with Hapag-Lloyd, keeping its headquarters in Peachtree Corners, investing an additional $5.5 million, and adding 363 new jobs to expand its offices. With 230 vessels and more than 12,000 employees, Hapag-Lloyd is the fifth-largest shipping company in the world, serving customers in 127 countries.
In May 2016, Comcast Corporation, the American global telecommunications conglomerate and owner of Xfinity and NBCUniversal, relocated its Southeast Headquarters to the Wells Building, a 10-story office building in Peachtree Corners.
In August 2021, the NASDAQ-100 and S&P 500 company, Intuitive Surgical announced its expansion of its Peachtree Corners facility, building an additional $600 million, 750,000 square foot, net zero carbon footprint, medical campus in the city, adding 1,200 new jobs and adding to the cluster of many medical, biomedical, biopharmaceutical, and health information technology companies that are in Peachtree Corners.
Soliant Health, a leading provider of specialized healthcare and education staffing services to hospitals and schools around the nation, expanded its Peachtree Corners headquarters to 83,000 square feet.
Amazon, CarMax, and Mass Mutual as well as Honeywell, Sprint Corporation, Siemens Industry Automation, Valmet, Fleetcor, Crawford & Company, ASHRAE, ACI Worldwide, Simmons Bedding Company, and CMD Group are among the over 2,300 businesses with a presence in Peachtree Corners. ASHRAE's world headquarters moved to Peachtree Corner's Technology Park Atlanta, with the company investing $15.7 million in its Peachtree Corners world location. Siemens Smart Infrastructure has its headquarters in Peachtree Corners. The Harlem Globetrotters are also headquartered in Peachtree Corners as well as the Southern Section of the United States Tennis Association (USTA). Peachtree Corners has 12 hotels to serve business travelers and visitors including Hilton, Marriott, and Hyatt.
Jointly working with Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile and Georgia Tech, Peachtree Corners developed a 5G incubator known as Curiosity Lab located in a 500-acre smart city technology park in the city, one of the nation's first smart city environments. The facility features a 25,000 square foot Innovation Center and 3-mile autonomous vehicle test track and provides developers the ability to build and test such things as autonomous vehicles, robotics, industrial drone applications, mixed reality training and entertainment, remote medical care, personal health and fitness wearables, and other technologies."City's Curiosity Lab Teams Up with T-Mobile, Ga. Tech on 5G Incubator Program." City of Peachtree Corners. February 17, 2021. Retrieved on February 17, 2021. Jacobs Engineering Group, Peachtree Corners, Delta Air Lines, Bosch, Cisco Systems, and Qualcomm are also jointly working to deploy smart system technologies in the city through technology that connects vehicles and infrastructure, focusing initially on roadside infrastructure, traffic management, and road safety. Further, Peachtree Corners is host to the Vehicle-to-everything (V2X) conference which involves development of intelligent transport systems including Vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), Vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I), and Vehicle-to-Pedestrian (V2P) communications and includes biometric technology, managing cities autonomously, and developing highway systems to make transportation safer, reduce traffic congestion, and reduce the environmental impact of automobiles and other road vehicles. Curiosity Lab was named winner in IDC Government Insights’ Fourth Annual Smart Cities North America Awards for Transportation.
The French-American Chamber of Commerce moved its operations from the Consulate General of France in Atlanta to office space within the Innovation Center at Curiosity Lab. In relation to the move, La French Tech – a French government-supported ecosystem of startups, investors, decision-makers and community builders – will expand collaboration with Peachtree Corners as it guides companies looking to develop technologies and expand into North America.
Funded by the city, Peachtree Corners has produced a non-profit business incubator affiliated with the Technology Development Center at Georgia Tech as part of the city's Curiosity Lab that provides for software and hardware technology startups, providing these companies with the support they need to launch new products and grow.