GlaxoSmithKline, one of the cornerstones of North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park, is selling three of its buildings as part of a consolidation plan to shrink the company’s Triangle footprint.
The Durham (North Carolina) Herald-Sun reports that the consolidation plan will relocate the more than 1,000 workers for GSK (NYSE:GSK) now spread throughout the Research Triangle into offices on the pharmaceutical giant’s RTP campus. The company employs more than 4,000 in the Triangle. Spokesman Robert Sutton said that GSK plans to reduce its 3.7 million square feet of space in the Triangle down to about 2.5 million. GSK’s RTP campus is the London-based company’s U.S. headquarters.
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GSK said last summer that it would be spending some $70 million to modernize offices that dated to the 1980s. But at that time, the company said nothing about plans to sell any of its buildings. The buildings for sale include the Elion-Hitchings Building, whose first occupant in the early 1970s was GSK predecessor company Burroughs Wellcome.
The sale follows announcements earlier this year of changes in Philadelphia, where GSK also maintains large operations. The company in February announced plans to move its Philadelphia offices from downtown to the city’s Navy Yard along the Delaware River.
GSK has been transitioning its facilities into an open plan design where office space is open and work stations are shared. The company has said that the open design is intended to bring employees together and foster better communication and the sharing of ideas.
