Business Expansion in the Triangle

Is there a SAS user conference or something similar going on at convention center?

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Yes. But it was back on January 13th through the 16th.

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Wonder if it will end up in Cary in the future. Isn’t that where their current HQ is?

I’d think that, if they moved to Centennial, it’s a first step of being in Raleigh. Let’s hope so.

The first HQ for SAS Institute was in Raleigh when they started in 1976. The building is still there on Hillsborough Street across from campus. You can visit it and see a commemorative plaque.
sas1

For expansion, they were able to buy a plot of land close to Cary’s I-40 access and one stop from RDU.
It’s grown to host over 5,000 people and has over 25 buildings. The newest is ‘Building A’, a ‘LEED Gold’ tower which is Cary’s tallest at 10 stories.


I can’t see them giving up that sweet campus with the olympic pool, multiple day care centers, and miles of greenways. But a downtown Raleigh presence could be in the cards, for sales, training, and maybe some promotional value.

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ooooff
That 10 story building could have been 18 stories with sexy massive parking pedestal

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Ahhh, the conundrum of a LEED Gold building amidst a sea of asphalt parking… :grimacing:

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I’m with you on the irony… but for what it’s worth, LEED actually recognizes that a building’s location is the single most important factor in its environmental impact, and it does a pretty good job of taking that into account. Sustainable Sites is one of the sections with the most possible points you can get, and it includes things like access to public transit, the density and diversity of surrounding building uses within a certain walking radius, and whether the site is urban infill or brownfield redevelopment vs. a greenfield site. There’s also points for reducing the heat island effect, run-off management, and protecting or restoring habitat, all things that a sea of surface parking would impact.

All this to say: this building probably didn’t score many points at all in this section. To have gotten LEED gold, it would have had to make up for that by being a really efficient in all other categories.

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Yep, large parking lot. It’s a true suburban style campus.

But, surrounded by lots of trees. And to the south of the tower is the solar farm which is directly connected (i.e. it’s not just a grid/tie system). And they use lambs to ‘mow’ the grass there.

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That’s right. As someone who has looked into LEED for residential after planning a project, I was amazed at the attention to site specific criteria like proximity to greenways/multimodal transportation, % of lot that requires disturbance or clearing, reusing existing site materials, etc.

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Mhm! I got my certification a couple years ago but have yet to actually work on an urban LEED project. 90% of our clients who want to pursue LEED come to us with a suburban site already selected.

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I find these massive office parks super depressing, when Ericsson closed their RTP campus (before Lenovo moved in) it was vacant for years and years. You could shoot zombie movies there… when these large companies shut down or move it creates a giant scar on the landscape. The same thing happened at the old RTI buildings at 40/Davis Drive where now the Frontier building is.

Yeah, but then they’d have to forego all that sexy surface lot parking.

They are not moving anytime soon ( spent about 8 years working in Bldg U). There is some question as to what will happen to the company when Goodnight retires–if he sells it to, say, IBM, what happens to the campus after 50% of the workforce is laid off? There were theories that the new buildings on campus were in anticipation of Goodnight selling the company and then selling or leasing these swanky new buildings. Who knows.

We’ve been anxious see a big name project hit the triangle.

But LOTS of little ones have been steadily announced for the area - especially pharma projects. A new one announced today for Sanford. A genetics medicine plant worth $109M / 209 jobs.

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The accelerated development in health science in the last 2 years is very promising. The area could become the dominant hub in this country in that field - downside is virtually none of these jobs are in the urban core

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I doubt we will ever take that from Boston or the Bay Area.

Hum maybe in a few years will be looking to their own landmark tower

An expanding software company headquartered in Raleigh.

https://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2020/02/20/raleigh-software-company-buys-canadian-firm-ready.html?iana=hpmvp_trig_news_headline

more people in Raleigh headquarters
headcount of 230 now expanding office space to allow 450

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An update on the Fortive HQ move to Raleigh. Only about 100 employees moving here, but they filed for an IPO so a publicly-traded HQ is a nice get.

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article240507841.html

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Looks like there’s finally some movement happening in the ex-Nortel property in RTP!

Now, this sounds really awesome and all, but then you start wondering what this actually means. What does “expansions as needed” mean, and what could additional development look like? How does this fit in to regional transit and housing needs?


(original image from Gensler)

This was literally the only picture I could find of Gensler’s proposal.

I mean, there's these outdated spec sheets, too, but these probably don't count?


Does anyone have any more information on what’s going on here -and what this could mean for Raleigh?

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