Hotel, office complex for RTP in the works

Quintiles' headquarters may be in tower near new Westin

DURHAM -- Quintiles Transnational, a growing medical research company, is sparking an ambitious office-and-hotel project near Research Triangle Park.

Developer Tri Properties on Wednesday said it would build a headquarters for the company in a 10-story, 252,000-square-foot office building at Imperial Center off Interstate 40 at Page Road. The project is to include a 207-room, eight-story Westin Hotel.

"It's going to be a wow building," said Greg Sanchez, president of Tri Properties. "This is going to be an urban building in suburbia. ... An architectural gem."

The glass-and-steel office building, to be complete late next year, would rise above I-40, becoming among the tallest in the Research Triangle Park area, known more for sprawling low-rises.

It will be the global headquarters for Quintiles, which has about 1,300 employees in offices scattered throughout Durham. Quintiles will consolidate some employees and still have room to grow.

Quintiles is a contract research organization that helps pharmaceutical companies test medicines before they go to market. The industry is growing, particularly in the Triangle, as regulatory scrutiny forces drug makers to conduct more tests to identify side effects and other safety concerns.

Quintiles said in November it would add about 1,000 jobs in Durham. The state and local governments offered as much as $25 million in grants and other economic incentives, in one of the richest packages ever offered to a company expanding in the region.

The company has since added at least 225 people to its payroll and plans to grow to 2,000 local employees by 2012.

The hotel, to be developed by Inland American Winston Hotels, is to open in early 2009.

It is expected to be the region's second Westin. Another is scheduled to open in northwest Raleigh, near U.S. 70 and I-440 in the summer of 2009.

The Triangle hotel market has been recovering from the early 2000s, when the tech bust and Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks sapped travel. Hotel occupancy in Durham County rose to a six-year high of 67 percent in 2006, according to the Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau. Average daily rates have risen 22.5 percent to $88.91 since 2003.

Demand is expected to grow as more companies expand in or move to the RTP area. The Westin at Imperial is expected to compete with the Umstead, a luxury hotel in Cary, and a boutique hotel planned at Duke Realty's Perimeter Park in Morrisville.

Quintiles and other growing companies are likely to support the Westin at Imperial.

Imperial, a 4-million-square-foot park, is one of the biggest in the region. It has attracted tenants in part because of its location on I-40, I-540 and N.C. 54, which offer easy access around the region.

About 7 percent of offices and warehouses that Tri Properties manages at Imperial are empty, down from 36 percent in 2003.