Georgia Tech Real Estate Leader Tony Zivalich To Retire

The former commercial real estate executive who led the Georgia Institute of Technology through its recent spate of expansion is retiring.

Georgia Tech announced Wednesday that Tony Zivalich, its senior real estate adviser, will retire at the end of the year after nearly 10 years spearheading the university’s expansion.

In turn, Georgia Tech launched a national search for Zivalich’s replacement. Zivalich transitioned in March from associate vice president of real estate development at the university to senior adviser.

His retirement comes with “mixed emotions,” Zivalich told Bisnow Thursday. Zivalich said he wants to spend more time with his family, including traveling to Barcelona to visit his son and his new grandson, and return to private sector real estate advisory work.

Beyond advising some universities and public institutions, he said he can support Atlanta startups that need specialty real estate.

“I don't think that there are a lot of people who really understand what it takes to get a wet lab or a clean room, or, you know, data center or [colocation] space done,” Zivalich said. “So that's kind of a niche that I'd like to focus on.”

Zivalich’s association with Georgia Tech began before he left Cushman & Wakefield in 2016 to join the university’s development arm.

In 2014, Georgia Tech tapped Zivalich to manage its expansion of Technology Square in Midtown with Portman Holdings. The result was Coda, the $475M mixed-use high-performance computing center that is home to 800 full-time Georgia Tech faculty, staff and students.

He also assisted Georgia Tech in its 2016 acquisition of the 52-acre Lockheed campus at the Dobbins Air Force Base in Cobb County. The campus includes 750K SF of office and high bay space and 20 acres of vacant land. The facility is now used by Tech for its applied research as well as its research and development efforts for government and industry partners that focus on electronic warfare, cybersecurity countermeasures, autonomous systems and missile air defense, according to Zivalich’s resume provided to Bisnow. 

But Zivalich said his proudest accomplishment was the first phase of the Science Square mixed-use campus. That project includes the 368K SF Science Square Labs life sciences building and The Grace Residences, a 14-story apartment tower. Earlier this year, Duracell leased 59K SF at the 13-story lab building for its R&D headquarters, which will open next year. 

“Everybody says, ‘Well, life sciences is down.’ But we're running counter to national trends. Life sciences is up in Atlanta,” he said. “We took what was a distressed asset, Technology Enterprise Park, and really repositioned it and reenvisioned it.”

Zivalich is departing as Georgia Tech begins work on its Creative Quarter project, a mixed-use destination that will include high-rise residential, a hotel and academic buildings. He led the purchase of a 7-acre former Randall Brothers headquarters site sandwiched between Northside Drive and Marietta Street near Science Square.

Georgia Tech envisions Creative Quarter as a collaborative environment with space for art performances and rehearsals, recording and filming, virtual reality, artificial intelligence and makerspaces, according to a press release.

Zivalich said the project is at least two years from significant development. 

“We're waiting for the capital markets to recover, because similar to all of our projects I've talked about, there's a big private-sector role that's going to be played in the development of Creative Quarter,” he said. “And right now, the capital markets aren't in a position that's really going to support new development.”