IBM moves workers out of RTP to nearby Durham campus as park seeks reinvention
.jpg "IBM sign directs visitors to its North Carolina campuses.")
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- IBM moved most RTP staff to nearby 500 Campus, consolidating office footprint.
- IBM retains labs and small RTP presence while exploring options for property.
- RTP advances RTP 3.0 rezoning to add density, mixed-use and redevelopment options.
IBM has relocated most of its local workforce out of Research Triangle Park in a move that is tiny in distance but significant to the history and possible future of the 66-year-old business park.
A prominent RTP tenant since the 1960s, IBM confirmed it shifted employees from its main RTP location to its 500 Campus, a four-building site directly across South Miami Boulevard and the park’s eastern border in Durham. IBM had sold its 500 Campus to the Houston development firm Hines Global Income Trust for $66 million two years ago and immediately leased back this office space.
“IBM is focused on identifying real estate opportunities that enhance the employee experience,” the company’s press team shared in a statement Tuesday. Consolidating office space, IBM added, “underscores our continued efforts to optimize our footprint and foster deeper collaboration and innovation among IBMers in Raleigh-Durham.”
The tech company said it maintains labs, security operations and a small workforce at its RTP campus as it “explores options” for what to do with the property. Entering this year, IBM had 17 million square feet of floor space in the United States, down from 20 million square feet at the start of 2022, annual corporate filings show.
In pulling employees out of the park, IBM is leaving an economic zone it helped to thrive.
Opened in 1959, RTP initially struggled to attract businesses to the swath of former farmland that covered an area almost half the size of Manhattan. Then in April 1965, the New York company nicknamed “Big Blue” committed to open a research facility on 400 acres in North Carolina.
“IBM’s announcement was seen as a critical vote of confidence, validating the park’s mission and paving the way for the explosive growth that would follow,” UNC-Chapel Hill professor William Rohe wrote in his 2011 book “The Research Triangle: From Tobacco Road to Global Prominence.”
The company became the park’s biggest employer, a distinction it held until 2017 and has since ceded to Fidelity Investments. IBM declined to share how many people it currently employs in the Triangle but has messaged the location’s continued importance.
“RTP is one of our largest employee sites and the area continues to be a wonderful source of top talent to support our AI and hybrid cloud mission,” IBM chief analytics office Tim Humphrey said in a statement to The News & Observer last year. “Every function of IBM’s business has a presence in RTP.”
Triangle Business Journal first reported IBM’s employee relocation to the 500 Campus.
RTP 3.0 clears another hurdle
IBM’s exit comes as Research Triangle Park seeks to reinvent the kind of campuses it offers tenants. The economic area seeks to increase its density and mixed-use options — including more residential and retail — through a rezoning initiative its leaders call RTP 3.0.
“IBM has been an involved partner in advancing RTP 3.0 and other forward-facing initiatives for the park,” said Scott Levitan, president and CEO of Research Triangle Foundation, which manages the park. “We are in discussions with IBM about its long-term future, as we know the company remains strongly committed to RTP.”
Research Triangle Park straddles Durham and Wake counties and needs each local government to adjust its zoning codes to proceed. In June, Wake County revised its zoning to fit the RTP 3.0 plan, and on Oct. 16, the Durham County Planning Commission voted to recommend updates to its development codes in accordance with Research Triangle Foundation’s vision.
RTP says it is home to nearly 400 companies and more than 55,000 employees. Just across Miami Boulevard, the IBM 500 campus is also a candidate for future mixed-use development. Hines, its owner, is the development firm behind local mixed-use projects like Fenton in Cary and Durham’s Market District at American Tobacco.
“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 when Hines purchased the property in December 2023.
As of today, IBM remains the only tenant at the 774,000-square-foot site.
