IBM sells massive campus near Research Triangle Park. New owner sees mixed-use potential.
IBM has sold a four-building office complex near Research Triangle Park to the real estate firm that built the mixed-use projects Fenton In Cary and Durham’s Market District at American Tobacco.
On Dec. 14, the Houston-based Hines Global Income Trust acquired the IBM 500 Campus for $66 million, Durham County deeds records show. For now, IBM will be the tenant of the entire space.
“We are pleased to have completed this transaction, which will have no impact on our workforce or staffing levels in the Research Triangle,” IBM spokesperson Carrie Bendzsa said in an email.
As more offices sit empty, the 64-year-old business park is contemplating a rezoning plan to add housing, shops and a possible drinking district. Hines leaders say IBM’s 774,000-square-foot campus has strong potential to be more than an office park.
“Long-term, we are attracted to the site’s future redevelopment optionality, specifically given its strategic location in the heart of a high demand submarket for life science, residential, and industrial uses,” Paul Zarian, a Raleigh-based managing director at Hines, said in a release Monday.
According to data from Wake County Economic Development, IBM employs around 9,000 people in the Triangle area. Bendzsa said the company does not share local employee head counts for any market. IBM has additional offices inside RTP, while the 500-campus borders RTP to the east.
“The development model for RTP has not really kept up with the way innovation communities around our country and around the world have evolved,” Research Triangle Foundation President Scott Levitan told the Durham County Board of Commissioners last week.
The 7,000-acre park is today home to more than 375 companies, according to the Research Triangle Foundation. None were more instrumental to the area’s early success than IBM writes author William Rohe in his 2011 book “The Research Triangle.”
IBM declared plans to open an area research facility in April 1965.
“IBM’s announcement was seen as a critical vote of confidence,” Rohe says, “validating the park’s mission and paving the way for the explosive growth that would follow.”
This story was originally published December 18, 2023 at 4:05 PM.
