Coca-Cola will continue to occupy the facility in the near term, leasing the facility from Lincoln through 2018 as the company continues to migrate its IT apps and data to cloud-based services. The new venture will seek to take advantage of the facility's infrastructure and tremendous location and master lease the data center to a co-location provider.

Atlanta is one of the leading US data center markets, with 12.2 megawatts of total net absorption in 2016, according to CBRE. As the wholesale market in Atlanta continues to expand and evolve, the availability of custom facility and redundancy configurations, a favorable business climate, abundant and reliable power and low utility costs will likely make the metro a key market for data center requirements.

“The currency of the digital world is data and fiber is the super highway that carries data to and from Atlanta and out to the region and the rest of the world,” Tim Huffman, senior vice president of CBRE's data center practice, tells GlobeSt.com. “Just prior to the Civil War, Atlanta was called Terminus. This was a reference to the railroad system that connected the region and its primary hub and end point being what is now called Atlanta. Today, Atlanta fiber networks travel along the railroad and highway system rights of way connecting millions of people and businesses enabling communications and data driven financial transactions.”

Lincoln's Chip Sipple will spearhead leasing locally, while teaming with Ryan Sullivan of Lincoln Rackhouse to identify national tenants and co-location providers to lease the building. Lincoln has also assumed management of the facility.