Research Triangle Park’s ‘downtown’ has opened, but its most ambitious plans lie ahead
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The Triangle is growing up and out
Construction crews should again be busy in 2023, in the heart of RTP and across the mushrooming Triangle region. We’ve identified five spots you’ll want to keep an eye on for the rest of year, places where the region’s continuing growth will be easily visible.
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When economic leaders designed Research Triangle Park in the 1950s, they valued the area’s isolation. The Park was vast and forested — 7,000 acres, roughly half the size of Manhattan — which gave businesses a desirable distance between one another.
“The original RTP model was corporate campuses that had to protect (companies’) intellectual property, surrounded by pine trees,” said Scott Levitan, president and CEO of the Research Triangle Foundation, the nonprofit that oversees the world’s largest research park.
Much has changed since Research Triangle Park was founded in 1959, including the value modern companies and workers place on personal interactions. “Now, research and development happen when multiple parties collaborate,” Levitan said. “So the physical manifestation (of the park) has changed to match that.”
Today, the Research Triangle Foundation is coordinating a multi-year, $1.5 billion initiative to build the things that will bring people together: stores, restaurants, bars, event spaces and even housing.
Hub RTP, opened in 2020, strives to be the park’s downtown, a cultural and commercial nexus for residents across the ever-sprawling Triangle region. Situated on 100 acres between I-40 and Highway 54, the area is already partially open, with a handful of shops, restaurants and several office buildings.
By the end of this year, construction will have begun at a series of more ambitious developments at the Hub, including a 350-room hotel, an eight-story life science tower, a trio of office and retail buildings called the Horseshoe, and the Park’s first-ever housing units.
“I think the more people here the better,” said Nick Allen, chief program officer at the United Way of the Greater Triangle, which is a tenant at Hub RTP’s existing office space. “Whether they’re living here, working here, I don’t see it doing anything but adding value, adding energy.”
The first apartment complex includes more than 400 units and is expected to become available in early 2024.
But when it comes to renting an apartment in the Hub, Allen acknowledged he’d probably prefer having some distance between where he works and where he lives.
Filling the Triangle’s ‘doughnut hole’
As the greater-Triangle area expands into outlying communities, Levitan said it’s important to establish the community’s core as a viable place not just to work — but to also live and play.
“It’s hard to think of any other region (in the country) where there’s a doughnut hole in the center of the region,” he said. “It’s really a unique opportunity to accommodate the regional growth internally.”
Today, RTP is home to more than 400 national labs and companies, including IBM, Lenovo, Fidelity, GlaxoSmithKline and, soon, Apple. The area sits mostly in Durham County but also spans into Wake.
The incoming hotel at Hub RTP will hold 250 rooms and stand 10 minutes from Raleigh-Durham International Airport. The eight-story life science building, being built by Boston-based Longfellow Real Estate Partners, is planned to have 220,000 square feet of lab and office space and will open in 2025.
Development of the Horseshoe is being handled by the Charlotte firm White Point Partners. While the Horseshoe isn’t scheduled to open until at least the summer of 2024, Levitan said some tenants have already signed contracts to lease space.
But even after the Horseshoe, the Longfellow tower and the hotel, Hub RTP is set to expand further in what the Research Triangle Park calls “Phase 2” — office towers visible from I-40 and more apartments.
When complete, the final Hub project is anticipated to cost $1.5 billion and include 1 million square feet of lab and office space, shops, more than 200 hotel rooms and 1,200 residential units.
And by the time the last project opens, Triangle leaders believe the area’s centralized business park will feel a little less isolating.
Read next: The Downtown Cary Park is set to open in June. Here’s what to know.
This story was produced with financial support from a coalition of partners led by Innovate Raleigh as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work.
This story was originally published February 3, 2023 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Research Triangle Park’s ‘downtown’ has opened, but its most ambitious plans lie ahead."
