7 Reasons It's Finally Time To Live In Research Triangle Park David Kroll - Contributor, Forbes Magazine Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. The establishment of North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park in 1959 was aimed at reversing the “brain drain” of graduates from the area’s top research universities seeking science and engineering jobs in the Northeast and elsewhere. Beyond providing jobs for North Carolinians, the 1965 expansion of IBM into the Park set the stage for an influx of highly-trained workers attracted to the state’s moderate climate and inexpensive housing on large, green lots. With the weather allowing near-year-round golfing, one will still hear the lifestyle descriptor, “Tees, trees, and PhDs.” It’s no surprise now that the Park is now home to 170 companies that include Biogen Idec, Syngenta, United Therapeutics, Cisco, Bayer CropScience, Eisai, BASF, the U.S. EPA, NIH’s National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS; the only NIH institute/center outside of the DC metro area), and the original research institute that launched the park, RTI International. (Disclosure: I worked for RTI as a research pharmacologist from 2002 until 2008.) ![]() English: Research Triangle Park headquarters. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) The sprawl of housing developments across the three cities that comprise “the Triangle” – Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill – made RTP a work destination for nearly 40,000 people who would then spend most of their earnings near their homes. Why not? RTP is such a central location: 9 to 11 miles from downtown Durham, 12 to 14 miles from the center of Chapel Hill and the University of North Carolina, and 18 to 21 miles from the state capital of Raleigh. Plus, RTP’s early development plan never included housing or retail. Over the last decade or so, the downtown areas of nearby Raleigh and Durham began attracting young professionals back to the cities with redevelopment of old warehouses, mixed-use developments, and a revitalized arts, culture, and restaurant scene. A market began to emerge for more dense and convenient living that continues to expand. In December, the 23-story Skyhouse Raleigh apartment building broke ground downtown. Living and light rail? Yesterday, the foundation that manages central North Carolina’s 7,000-acre research and technology park announced their $17 million acquisition of a central, 100-acre parcel that will “become the geographic and figurative center” of a master plan unveiled last year. The not-for-profit Research Triangle Foundation of North Carolina is banking on private investment in mixed-use development that will also include humanities attractions. Yes, an attempt to make RTP not just a place to live and work, but a place to go. Research Triangle Foundation President and CEO Bob Geolas told us yesterday that many of the specifics won’t be worked out for “four or five months.” The Foundation had already secured Hines to develop another, larger tract but efforts will now focus on the more center 100-acre strip called Park Center. Central to the plan will be an anticipated $2 billion in investment with the potential to add up to 100,000 new jobs to the Park, two-and-a-half times the current number. The plan also includes along-overdue rail path that would connect Park Center with the three vertex cities of the Triangle. Currently, the land is home to the former, about-to-be-demolished Radisson Governor’s Inn, the hotel where you likely stayed if you ever came down to visit GSK, the old Burroughs-Wellcome, or any of the earlier Park tenants. A non-descript office park on the west end is between empty and 10 percent occupancy. And the charter Research Triangle High School is slated to remain on the property but in a new facility. Audacious? Well, no more so than a former southern governor and a few university, business, and banking folks who thought international corporations might set up shop in a 7,000-acre pine forest…in the 1950′s U.S. South. A personal take The new purchase and redirection of development efforts has met with mixed reaction on social media and newspaper comment threads. I can’t predict the timeline, but my take on the ultimate outcome is that Park Center and the other Research Triangle Foundation development plans will work. Why?
Yes, yes, I’m a scientist and I’ve given a primarily emotional argument for the ultimate success of this plan. But as a student of the 1950s establishment of the Park, I read plenty on how the founders thrived on enthusiasm, pride, and optimism. The money then came. I think the money is there. Of course, I’m not the one with the money. And I’m now at the age and family status that our homestead will remain here near Duke University. But if I was 25 and couldn’t afford living in downtown Raleigh, Durham, or Chapel Hill, I’d want to be part of what’s going to happen in RTP. |