Meta ends lease of Durham office where it once planned to employ 100 engineers
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Meta didn’t renew 18,000‑square‑foot Durham sublease; its plans are unclear
- Reality Labs hiring in Durham vanished as Meta shifts toward AI and data centers
- Durham leaders note loss, but cite other business wins and regional growth
Meta has not continued its lease on a downtown Durham office where the technology giant previously planned to employ 100 engineers.
Duke University Real Estate, which manages the university’s off-campus real estate portfolio, had been subleasing 18,000 square feet to Meta at the American Tobacco Campus. This sublease expired over the summer, and Meta did not renew it, wrote Julie Siegmund of Duke in an email Tuesday to The News & Observer.
In February 2023, Meta told The N&O it would establish an American Tobacco Campus office to support around 100 “enterprise engineers.” This confirmation followed months of speculation regarding local hiring by the company that owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Meta at the time posted several job openings in Durham for its metaverse division called Reality Labs.
Today, the company lists no Durham job postings online, and Meta is weighing significant cuts to Reality Labs, according to reporting last week by Bloomberg and other media outlets. In October, Meta shared Reality Labs lost around $4.4 billion over the summer. Overall, this virtual and augmented reality division has cost the Mark Zuckerberg-led company more than $70 billion.
Meta’s exit from American Tobacco Campus comes as the company has increased investments in artificial intelligence and data centers. Last month, it announced $600 million in future U.S. spending to help scale these efforts. Meta already operates a large North Carolina data center campus in Rutherford County’s Forest City.
The company did not respond to emailed questions from The N&O about its expired lease, plans in Durham or for Reality Labs overall. It is not clear whether Meta personnel ever occupied the downtown Durham office.
Meta is currently the world’s seventh most valuable public company, and its commitment in early 2023 brought excitement to a region already buzzing from major office news from fellow technology behemoths Apple and Google. “For a long time, our region has been a powerhouse but a very humble powerhouse,” Matt Gladdek of the Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce said late last year. “And it was nice to have the recognition of Google, Apple, Microsoft, Meta all locating here.”
Though Meta didn’t renew its American Tobacco Campus lease, Gladdek pointed out that downtown Durham has notched recent business wins from less high-profile companies, including attracting the headquarters of Avalara and Dollar Shave Club as well as office commitments from the Boston Consulting Group and the multibillion-dollar financial tech startup Plaid.
“We’re disappointed when any company chooses not to renew its lease,” he said. “But I think Durham is doing better now than it was two years ago.”
This story was originally published December 10, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
