SAS plans new building – its 24th – on its Cary campus

Business software giant SAS is planning to erect another building – a nine-story, 400,000-plus-square-foot tower – on its extensive campus in Cary to accommodate future growth.

“We are pretty much at capacity across the campus,” said SAS spokeswoman Shannon Heath. “As our revenue continues to grow, we are going to need space for customer meetings and future expansion.”

The company, which is headquartered in Cary, plans to begin clearing a 38.5-acre site across from Building C, near the rear exit of the campus on Trenton Road, for the new tower late this year. The tower is expected to be ready for occupancy in early 2019.

The new building, dubbed Building A, will feature a full-service cafe and space for customer meetings. Space in the building, which SAS says will be similar to the existing building Q, will be flexible so t can accommodate a variety of functions.

The current plan, SAS noted, is subject to change.

SAS has 5,412 employees in Cary and 13,700 worldwide. The company generated $3.09 billion in revenue last year, which was up 2.3 percent. Revenue would have risen 5.1 percent if not for the strong U.S. dollar, which depressed revenue from overseas.

The new building will be the 24th on SAS’s campus in Cary.

So why will the newest building on the campus be called Building A?

Although the campus buildings were named in alphabetical order, Heath said, the original Building A was razed to make way for the Umstead Hotel & Spa.

Corporations, government agencies and others use SAS business intelligence and analytics software to analyze their operations and predict trends.

This story was originally published May 26, 2015 at 10:51 AM with the headline "SAS plans new building – its 24th – on its Cary campus."