That’s very true, too; I can’t believe I forgot to mention the Unreal engine Epic Games has a unique advantage here, too, since the other big virtual rendering engine (Unity) is its own company that hasn’t expanded too much outside of gaming.
For the non-gamers in this community, though, both companies have been used for early-stage augmented reality applications like tools to practice rare surgical procedures and prototyping systems for autonomous vehicles. Epic Games’ faster rendering performance and C++ -based coding scheme means they’re more suited to enterprise applications. If that side of the business can become more mainstream, then that’s another major reason for Epic Games to stay and thrive in the Triangle.
They had been clearing land for months for this, didn’t realize yesterday was the ‘official’ groundbreaking however. This is down the road literally from the new FujiFilm and Yield developments out here.
Curious what median salary (salary for real people) is, instead of average which is skewed by executives. If I could buy a nice big house with some land down there and make $120k/yr, I’d be happy to just deal with my long drive to DTR.
A manufacturing facility will have personnel with technical expertise. From another article on this from Endpoints:
Construction is scheduled to wrap up by 2029, though the plant will be operational in 2025. New hires will include engineers, technicians, quality, management and administrative staff. The average salary of the new positions added is expected to reach nearly $120,000, close to double what the current average is in Wake County. Another 350 jobs are expected to be added, upon the site’s completion.
Mehh as someone who lives in the area where this is going I can attest to the rapidly rising house prices out here so you might have to define how ‘big’ of a house
This area is unique as it’s about equally distant to both Holly Springs and Apex. The sprawl/nonstop development of each town is pushing out to this area. Everywhere you drive you see signs from luxury homebuilders building neighborhoods everywhere out here.
EDIT: Not implying you don’t make the big bucks to come out to this area.
I just meant it would make living outside the immediate Raleigh area more palatable to me if I was making some good money there. I’m not holding my breath, just musing about it. I know my house now has almost doubled in value since I bought it, but that’s the thing: the prices are going up like crazy everywhere, so it doesn’t help that much.
I’m in the same situation. I was curious with all the home values increasing, but moving comes out to just be a wash at best, unless I move to Alabama.
Come down to Alabama! But pick carefully. Huntsville and and the counties around Mobile Bay are seeing surges in home prices. Hell, where aren’t? My 1400 sq ft 3bd, 1.5ba ranch that we bought for 90 15 yrs ago just went for 130!! But the best thing about AL is the property taxes. I was paying about $350 on that house!!
WOW this is a shocker as one reason why picked Raleigh over Atlanta!!!
"They have a good airport,” he said about Raleigh-Durham International Airport. “That is one of the first reasons … you can easily go to other places in the U.S.”
It makes a bit more sense, though, if you keep reading the rest of the article. They ditched Atlanta because of congestion; access to the airport seems to have been just as important to them about where they could fly.
For people who haven’t read the article, it also cites our university talent pipeline and how SAS (who they already work with) is headquartered in Cary as other key factors. Spotit employs 130 people as of now; that’s not necessarily small, so it’s nice that foreign companies of that caliber are also starting to have the “gut feeling” that Raleigh “will be the next big thing in tech”.
I am closer, time wise, to ATL in Alabama that a goodly number of metro Atlanta folks who are on the north & northwest sides of the city!
One thing I’ve always loved about RDU - especially always living on the west side of town - is its convenience and the fact that it is not a hub. Charlotte has a ton of connections, but the prices always seem a lot higher than surrounding airports.
I wonder if these Belgian folks looked at housing costs when comparing the two. Saw this a couple days ago and it kind of puts things in perspective at how crazy the market is around here.
Agreed. Downtown > RDU being a totally stress-free 20 minute drive and essentially never waiting in line the entire way to the gate if you have Precheck feels like magic after dealing with big city airports my whole life.
Agree on CTL, I’m 3hr from RDU, 2hr from CLT and GSO. Find that RDU prices tend to be 10-20% lower than the other 2. CTL because is dominated by American Airline (seems last I hear 90% of flights) and GSO due to limited number of flights. Also find flight times out of RDU to places I tend to go are shorter due to better connections if needed. So use RDU, oh and parking is cheaper at RDU. This is all from ~3 years ago as have not flown since then.
Interesting observation, any time I’ve looked at American flights (that’s my primary airline), I’ll sometimes check to see if it’s less expensive to just go to CLT and fly out, and the RDU flight connecting through CLT has always been cheaper (in my experience). I’d love to know the logic behind that.
Yes, that confuses me as well. We are 80 miles to BHM or 100 to ATL, and its almost always cheaper to fly out of BHM - through ATL - than just to go over. The kicker of course is that that puddle jump to BHM is often the first to get delayed or canceled. So them I am 100 miles from home, with my car 180 miles away, and stuck.
Yep it’s weird logic, I looked at a Las Vegas flight a few months ago and was cheaper out of RDU than CTL even though the flight did a stop over at CTL ???
Epic Games has a unique advantage here, too, since the other big virtual rendering engine (Unity) is its own company that hasn’t expanded too much outside of gaming.
