The vision of a rejuvenated downtown Durham filled with shops, restaurants, luxury offices and residences now looks more hopeful since a national advertising agency committed Thursday to join the future American Tobacco Campus.
After five months of consideration, the firm McKinney & Silver signed a letter of intent to relocate its offices from the Fayetteville Street Mall in downtown Raleigh to the Bull Durham district.
Boasting a list of national clients that includes Audi of America, the NASDAQ Stock Market, Lands' End and XO Communications, the company will find the new home it has been seeking in the new downtown industrial center, said Janet North, McKinney & Silver's director of agency communications.
Joining three other prominent tenants--Duke University, Compuware and GlaxoSmithKline--the 32-year-old firm will bring 140 employees to the Reed Building, one of 12 warehouses in the one-million square-foot campus.
The company will have a 35,000 square-foot space custom designed to allow the agency to provide optimal creative services to its clients.
"Advertising firms don't work in traditional office space anymore," North said. "We require integration of thinking and collaboration. Multilevels of office space don't work. "Overall the agency has been in about a three- to five-year hunt for the perfect space for McKinney," she added. "Probably in late spring we were invited to come look and we were intrigued. It is such a spectacular space."
Officials from project developer Capitol Broadcasting Company, said they believe they have found a marketing asset in McKinney & Silver.
"There are several attractions [of McKinney & Silver]," said Peter Anlyan, general manager of CBC Durham Real Estate. "[McKinney & Silver is] a solid company, they're creative, they fit the downtown renovated factory office space model. We also see a very visionary [chief executive officer] in Brad Brinegar."
Renovation of the new office space is set to begin this February and officials are expecting the firm to relocate to Durham in May 2004 with the completion of the project's first phase--the southern two-thirds of the campus. Anlyan said the end of this phase will create the opening of new office space, as well as a coffee shop, a deli and other restaurants yet to be named.
Additionally, 100,000 square feet of the first phase's territory portion will be finished and remain unclaimed. CBC is looking for more major tenants.
"We're talking to a couple of other companies," Anlyan said, adding that the project is still financially secure.
He said the second phase, including residential space and a hotel, is targeted for completion in 2006.
From the onset, officials expected the American Tobacco project to be worth $160 million, contributing to long-term prosperity in both Durham and the entire Triangle area.
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