Inside Boehringer’s New Johns Creek Headquarters, Medley Begins to Feel Real

One of the more revealing comments at Monday morning’s opening of Boehringer Ingelheim’s new U.S. Animal Health headquarters did not come from the governor, the mayor or one of the global executives at the podium.

It came during a hallway conversation with an employee who lives in Gwinnett County.

He had moved with Boehringer from its former Duluth headquarters to Johns Creek and was plainly happy about it. The old surroundings, he said, did not feel nearly as new. Here there would be restaurants, stores, coffee and considerably more temptation. He laughed that the move might end up costing him money.

Then he mentioned something more consequential. At the old office, he generally came in two days a week. In Johns Creek, he is already coming three.

That small change may say as much about what Boehringer Ingelheim and Medley are trying to create as anything announced from the podium.

The global animal-health company officially opened its new Johns Creek headquarters Monday, bringing nearly 500 employees from its former Duluth location into approximately 73,000 square feet at Medley. The company occupies two floors overlooking a mixed-use district that is itself still taking shape.

Anyone arriving Monday could see that this was not a ribbon cutting inside a finished town center. Construction remains visible around Medley, and several storefronts are still being completed. Sephora, just below the office and beside the already operating Trader Joe’s, was still under construction Monday morning.

Five Minutes to Decide: “That’s the Place”

Peter Ploeger, Boehringer Ingelheim’s U.S. Animal Health country managing director, explained from the podium that Johns Creek separated itself quickly when the company began considering a new home.

Speaking with a slight German accent, Ploeger recalled just how quickly.

“When we visited this place, it took us really five minutes to say, ‘That’s the place,’” he said. “Because we felt it in our heart that that’s the place to be.”

Johns Creek offered the skilled workforce and quality of life the company wanted, he said, while placing the headquarters within a growing life-sciences ecosystem and keeping it connected to Boehringer’s other Georgia operations in Athens and Gainesville.

But Ploeger returned repeatedly to something less measurable than location.

“What excites me most about these U.S. headquarters is not just where it is located,” he said. “It’s how it was designed.”

The office was built around collaboration, with open gathering spaces, smaller rooms and quieter areas rather than long rows of identical workstations. Ploeger called the headquarters “more than a building,” saying it reflects the company’s values and the future it wants to build.

There is even a library.

Gov. Brian Kemp noticed it during a tour before the ceremony.

“I was thinking, as we walked through the library, I may come back and take advantage of that quiet space,” Kemp joked.

The view from those windows may be as important as the office itself.

Instead of relocating into another isolated suburban office complex, Boehringer has placed employees inside a district designed around restaurants, shops, gathering spaces and daily activity. For Medley, hundreds of workers provide customers before many of those businesses have even opened.

The Gwinnett employee’s joke about spending more money was funny because it described exactly how that model is supposed to work.

A German Executive and Hermann Hesse

Dr. Armin Wiesler, the Boehringer Ingelheim board member responsible for the company’s global Animal Health business, had traveled from Germany for the opening.

“Grand openings are often used at the end of a project,” Wiesler told the crowd. “For us, we see this as the beginning of a new chapter.”

Then he reached for Hermann Hesse.

“Please allow me to use the words of the German poet Hermann Hesse,” Wiesler said. “‘A magic dwells in each beginning.’”

He followed it with an unexpectedly modern aside.

“I’ve asked Copilot if it’s also known in the United States,” he said, prompting laughter. “Copilot said I can use it.”

Later, after the formal ceremony, our conversation with Wiesler moved into the unusual structure of Boehringer itself. Unlike many large pharmaceutical companies, it remains privately held and family-owned more than 140 years after its founding in Germany.

That matters, Wiesler said, because it gives the company “a very long-term perspective.” Decisions can be viewed not only through the next quarter but through the next generation.

Our conversation then turned to culture. Wiesler has lived and worked in Germany, the United States and Asia and spoke about the adjustments required of leaders moving among them.

“Germans are more direct,” he said. Americans, he suggested, can sometimes deliver difficult messages less explicitly. His larger point was not that one culture has found the correct approach, but that leaders must understand the cultural expectations of the people in front of them.

Wiesler also connected the company’s work to a broader idea.

“The health of animals and humans is deeply, deeply interconnected,” he told the audience, pointing to everything from companion animals to agriculture, disease preparedness and food production.

Kemp and the “Georgia Way”

Kemp’s remarks shifted the morning toward Georgia’s economic-development story, though animals were never far from the conversation.

First Lady Marty Kemp joined him, and the governor noted her affection for animals and Boehringer’s involvement with pet-adoption efforts. Animal welfare, he said, is “a cause near and dear to our family’s heart.”

Boehringer now employs more than 1,500 people across Georgia, Kemp said, including operations in Athens and Gainesville.

Kemp described the project as an example of what he calls the “Georgia way” of economic development.

“It’s not just from the top down,” he said. “It’s really a bottom-up approach. It’s a team sport.”

The important part, he added, is not simply cutting a ribbon but creating the conditions for a company to “grow and flourish” afterward.

Johns Creek Mayor John Bradberry’s remarks carried a somewhat different tone. As he addressed Kemp, there was a hint of farewell in the room. Kemp is in the final portion of his second and last term as governor, and Bradberry’s acknowledgment occasionally sounded less like a routine introduction than recognition that one political chapter is approaching its close.

That feeling fit a morning otherwise devoted to beginnings.

Johns Creek itself is a young city, incorporated in 2006 without the historic downtown inherited by communities such as Roswell or Alpharetta. Its Town Center effort is an attempt to create deliberately what older cities developed over generations: a recognizable civic and commercial center.

Medley is one of its largest pieces. Monday, for perhaps the first time, it felt less like a rendering. People were actually going to work there.

Then the Dogs Arrived

For all the discussion of global business and life sciences, one of the warmest moments of the morning required almost no explanation.

The Johns Creek Police Department’s K-9 unit came forward.

Boehringer used the occasion to donate NexGard Plus parasite protection for the department’s police dogs.

Alexandra McMenamy, Boehringer’s U.S. Head of Pet, described the K-9s as trained partners and public servants alongside their handlers.

“As an animal health company, we can’t think of a better way to celebrate our beginning here in Johns Creek than by caring for the dogs that care for us,” she said.

There was another canine moment nearby when Mayor John Bradberry turned to the animal photographs decorating the office. Bradberry noted that he had submitted pictures of his two dachshunds and, speaking to the German guests in the room, reminded them that the breed’s name refers to its history as a badger hunter.

A Finished Office Above an Unfinished Medley

By the time the ribbon was cut, Boehringer’s headquarters looked complete.

Medley did not.

Downstairs and outside, storefronts were still being finished and construction crews were still working toward the larger opening. Upstairs, however, the routines had already begun: employees at desks, meetings underway, coffee carried through the halls.

That may be the more important milestone.

Cities often celebrate developments when the signs go up or the ribbon falls. But places become real more quietly, when people start choosing to spend their days there.

On Monday morning, that part had already happened.

• A Global Life Sciences Firm Is Moving Into Johns Creek’s New Town Center
• In Georgia’s GOP Runoffs, Trump and Kemp Pick Their Sides
• The Companies Moving Into North Atlanta — And What They Actually Bring With Them

About the Contributors

Tsvi Jolles

Author · Author, Editor & Publisher

Tsvi Jolles is the author of seven books and the founder and publisher of North Atlanta Star. He has lived in Cumming for almost a decade.

View profile →

Revital Hasenfratz

Contributor · Photographer & Contributor

Revital Hasenfratz is a photographer and contributor to North Atlanta Star.