Thyssenkrupp’s new HQ will include the tallest elevator test tower in the Western Hemisphere

Thyssenkrupp Elevator Americas is currently in the process of building a new headquarters in Atlanta near The Battery and Truist Park. 

The project includes a 150,000-sf corporate headquarters building, an 80,000-sf business services and administrative center, and the Innovation and Qualification Center (IQC), a 420-foot elevator tower, which will be the tallest elevator test tower in the Western Hemisphere. 

The corporate headquarters building will be home to the executive team, corporate functions, a software lab, an engineering office, and training facilities. The business services and administrative building will be home to shared service and administrative functions. The IQC will feature a glass facade and include 18 test shafts: 10 mid-rise shafts, two passenger elevators, and six low-rise elevators. Next-level elevator technologies such as TWIN, the two-cabins-per-shaft elevator system, and MULTI, the world’s first rope-free and sideways-moving elevator system, are also included.

Walter P Moore, the project’s structural engineer, designed the test tower concrete walls to be fully built and stable prior to installation of any steel infill framing members. This was critical for the use of the slip form tower wall construction. Maintaining a uniform 24" concrete tower wall thickness at all elevations also facilitated the slipform construction method, without requiring a reset of the forms to allow for a change in wall thickness. Walter P Moore also developed a futureproofed method for support gaming of the tower test elevators that involved a network of steel tube framing in-board of the slab edges, which allows flexibility to support a variety of elevator types in each shaft.

The project is slated for completion in 2022.