I don’t think you can just blame HB2. Charlotte is having no problem attracting progressive companies. Arrival, a british EV company, just plopped their HQ in Southend. They just had their IPO too.
4 Likes
Raleigh needs a tangible brand that’s exciting to the next generation of workforce. It’s getting there, but more urban development is needed to realize it.
From afar, and over the years, it has always appeared to me that Charlotte pursued a “tick the box” sort of approach to their brand. “We need a basketball team” 
“We need a football team” “We need an iconic tower” “We need a light rail” …and so on. This strategy has seemed to work for them, albeit while creating a mostly sterile solution.
I am not suggesting that Raleigh follows suit, but the city does need a brand strategy that’s more than “It’s safe…has good jobs…has good schools”…yawn… That’s not a recipe for enthusing the next generation.
The projects that are in the pipeline today will hopefully take Raleigh in the right direction. Creating more energy in our downtown districts through more people with more things to do is absolutely going in the right direction, and a more organic approach to urban growth should pay off for our core. Personally, I don’t want to see any project larger than Smoky Hollow or The Dillon put into our core for fear that it would come off as too Disney and contrived.
8 Likes
A bit cryptic……it hooked me with the “major HQ…” part.
2 Likes
They’ve been saying that for 4 years though.
2 Likes
If you’re not trying to land Fortune 500 HQs you’re not doing your job.
5 Likes
Local ‘relocation’ : Glaxo moving from RTP to ATC in Durm ‘in response to changing needs for office space over the past year+’…Story on WRAL, etc…
2 Likes
Etc etc 
13 Likes
They are vacating like 560K sf of space in RTP and only leasing about 70K sf in ATC in Durham. Will be a big hole to fill. Not great news for the prospect of new office construction.
2 Likes
GSK has been looking at how underutilized the space on Moore Drive is for years now, so this is not a surprising move. There will only be enough seats in the Durham location for at most 50% of the people based in the Triangle.
However, this downsizing in space combined with a push to build 40 stories all over the place has been my concern for a while now. How will the new buildings be filled? Even if new companies move here, people with corporate functions - legal, finance, IT, HR - really don’t need to be in the office for the most part (I fall into one of these categories and haven’t been in the office regularly since we moved to open floor plan in 2015).
R&D requires collaboration (GSK moved all R&D ops out in 2014-15) and those people need access to specific lab equipment that they obviously don’t have at home. Maybe people who work on engineering projects need collaboration - actually sitting F2F around a drafting table (no idea but that’s what my retired father says).
I feel like Raleigh is 20 years late to the tall building craze - technology, costs, and the pandemic all are pushing us towards a WFH culture across a lot of industries. If you can save real estate costs you can funnel that money to innovation and other things that actually drive your profits/stock price.
I’m genuinely curious what people think about this contrast (build vs downsize).
10 Likes
Not all the 40 stories are commercial, in fact a lot is turning resi that was commercial. That may help with the WFH narrative.
9 Likes
I noticed that the Raleigh Mag sneak peek of the Platform apartment project mentioned that there will be work from home “amenities” included in the project. So I think you’re onto something even though this specific project is only 7 floors.
6 Likes
More residents would be a better outcome for DTR than more office, so I hope we see the future as you describe…
8 Likes
I always tell people “Raleigh is a great place to live, but I wouldn’t want to visit.”
2 Likes
I think it is a great place to visit…if you have someone to visit. I think Raleigh has so many great elements for a tourist destination, but no cohesion around them. I remember showing friends the art museum, CAM, the history museum, Museum of Life & Sciences, and they all were amazed that had never known about them. And then taking friends on a brew hike around downtown.
For so many years, this city was always a packaged deal with Durham and Chapel Hill, which wasn’t a bad thing. But, it’s now time for Raleigh to become its own thing. No more sharing the spotlight. Sell the city, not the region.
17 Likes
I believe this pandemic will continue its reduction in cases through time, as the 1918 and other pandemics have done. As we move away from this traumatic era, we will return to work in person. As humankind, we need the interaction, and it will come and fill the proposed offices. The pandemics always fade, although, in this case, taking 100s of thousands with it.
6 Likes
I guess at least GSK doesn’t agree with that. Downsizing sites by 70% in Philly and 90% in RTP/Durham but without loss of headcount means they recognize corporate functions can be done remotely. Of course if you want to go in because you have to sit around a table with people, you can - that’s what the conference rooms are for. It’s not just the pandemic that drove this, though - technology has shown working remotely can be done more cheaply and people want WFH as an option.
3 Likes
Though there are side effects, as I read about Facebook’s outage was exacerbated by wfh and not having enough hands on-site. There will be a recalibration over the next few years as companies look for a happy balance.
4 Likes
Where DTR could still push forward on this topic is the small business, startup scene. Even pre-pandemic, I felt like recruiting large companies into DTR was less important than supporting startups and small businesses. Large companies will continue to do what helps their bottom line which includes shifting office space to lower rents or reducing/increasing space as needed. It’s just rational business practices I feel.
Startups, and smaller businesses in general, I feel find value in proximity to each other and that innovative ecosystem. You need the restaurants and bars and coworking spaces and events for people to network and collaborate. We have that. The suburbs and RTP do not. (or DTR has a big edge in that) WFH also does not have that.
I’m sure examples exist of fully remote companies making it work but my money is on DTR still being a startup incubator. I vote for doubling down on this in some way.
11 Likes
Facebook could have done the world a favor and just stayed shut down forever.
21 Likes
2 Likes