In an effort to boost Georgia’s economic development prospects, the Governor’s Office of Workforce Development established the Innovation Crescent in 2007. Loosely modeled after North Carolina’s Research Triangle, the effort sought to tie together a number of the Peach State’s existing assets to promote research and development in the life sciences and bio medicine.
With its southern anchor at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, and including the research facilities at Georgia Tech, Emory University, the Centers for Disease Control, promoters of the Innovation Crescent envisioned Georgia 316 starting with Gwinnett Technical College and Georgia Gwinnett College along Georgia 316 and extending to the University of Georgia in Athens as a place where companies involved in the biological sciences could locate research and development facilities.
