Next spring, Goat Farm will power LOOP, a seven-acre arts and technology project at historic 665 Marietta St. Developed with Georgia Tech Arts, the West Midtown site will mix artist studios, performance spaces, and tech-infused installations just steps from the Ferst Center For The Arts and Science Square, with doors open to both campus and city.
For Georgia Tech Arts strategist Birney Robert, LOOP reflects a larger goal years in the making: helping Georgia Tech play a bigger role in Georgia’s creative industries. The university has launched new degree programs that unite art, design, and technology; explored ways to transform campus-owned sites into creative spaces; and met with community partners to ensure those spaces serve Atlanta’s broader arts scene. Together, those efforts revealed a shared need: a place where creative research can move beyond campus and connect directly with the public.
“LOOP is a great opportunity to bring research outside of the lab and classroom and into a space that’s more accessible,” Robert says. “We want faculty, staff, and students to know this is where they can bring projects to life and where the surrounding community can encounter them.”
LOOP also aligns with Georgia Tech’s vision for the Creative Quarter, a planned innovation district that will connect the campus, Science Square, and the surrounding Westside into a hub for arts, design, and emerging technologies. The activation at 665 Marietta serves as an early test site for what that district could become: a place where creative industries, researchers, and local artists share ideas and space. The project also brings together a varied group of collaborators, including MALL//STAYNER Architects (lead design partner), Anava Projects (international arts consulting), JJLA (live-event production), and Asha Advisory (local partnerships).
“The metric is: Do campus makers use the space? Can a researcher translate work for general audiences, stakeholders, and neighbors? If the answer’s yes, LOOP is doing its job.”
Georgia tech arts strategist Birney Robert
Allie Bashuk of Goat Farm describes the partnership as a natural next step in a relationship that has grown organically between the arts center and Georgia Tech faculty and students. “We’ve always had this beautiful back-and-forth,” she says. “At our core, we’re an arts organization, but we’re also developers. We take a portion of top-line revenue and put it into the Goat Farm Arts Fund, which lets us back dance, theater, concerts, exhibitions—you name it.” Bashuk says LOOP will help the Goat Farm grow and give experimental work room to breathe.
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Work on 665 Marietta, formerly known as the Randall Brothers building, will transform its industrial interior into geometric “loops” and flexible layouts designed for quick transitions, from immersive installations to live performances. The space also gives Goat Farm a second significant programming footprint beyond its West Midtown campus, with studios available for lease and a venue designed for creative risk-taking. “Leasing the studios is one metric,” Bashuk says. “But equally important is whether contemporary, experimental programming draws interest and whether the name LOOP becomes a real signal in the city.”
Robert measures success the same way: by participation and impact. “The metric is: Do campus makers use the space? Can a researcher translate work for general audiences, stakeholders, and neighbors? If the answer’s yes, LOOP is doing its job.”
Robert says the project provides startups and artists with a test bed while creating a space for Atlanta’s creative community to gather and build. Bashuk calls it a “middle space” between a university and an arts developer—public meets private, lab meets stage, student meets producer. “It’s a powerful collaboration,” she says. “We want to put that on a world stage.”
There’s also a practical goal: make it easier for the public to engage with Tech. “Universities can feel like ivory towers,” Robert says. “Parking is tricky; buildings are hard to navigate. This Westside location makes it easier for people who don’t often visit Georgia Tech to attend events and to see Tech’s creative life up close.”
As construction continues, LOOP is already shaping how Atlanta imagines the future of art and innovation. It’s a working sketch of what happens when research steps out of the lab, artists move into the room, and a city built on reinvention gives them both a stage.