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RTP Westin Hotel & new Quintiles HQ


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As you know Raleigh's Westin Hotel is located at Soleil Center

Westin Hotel

http://www.soleilcenter.com

Aug 01, 2007

Tri Properties to build HQ for Quintiles

By Jack Hagel, Staff writer

http://www.newsobserver.com/business/story/656240.html

DURHAM - Tri Properties today said it plans to build a new headquarters for fast-growing medical researcher Quintiles Transnational at Imperial Center business park.

The project, Imperial Plaza, is to include a 10-story, 252,000-square-foot office building and a 207-room, eight-story Westin Hotel off Interstate 40 at Page Road.

The offices will serve as the global headquarters for Quintiles, which has about 1,300 employees in offices scattered throughout Durham.

Rendering of Imperial Plaza, the new Quintiles headquarters

440-Imperial_Tower_-_new_rendering_from_I-40.embedded.prod_affiliate.3.jpg

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I wonder whether this will be in any way an urban design, or if it will be a typical (though taller than normal) suburban office building and hotel?

This area, historically known as Nelson, is probably the densest area in the RTP area. With Imperial Center, the future Triangle Metro Center, a bunch of hotels, offices, and retail, the only things it's missing towards being a true mixed use center are service retail and permanent residents.

It also has the densest street network of anywhere in the RTP area, even to the point of being a grid.

With the possible addition of a regional transit hub on-site, I see a lot of potential for this area to urbanize. I hope that Triangle Metro Center, when it's developed, properly addresses the street and makes it possible for the area to redevelop into a downtown, rather than like an extremely dense suburban office park.

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Hopefully, next thing we will see is:

1. W by Sheraton

2. Ritz Carlton

3. Intercontinental

4. Crown Plaza

AND.. hopefully we will see..

1. Hotel at Triangle Town Center

2. Residential development at Triangle Town Center

3. Residential Development in RTP

4. More residential Development downtown

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It's curious there's more interest in the hotel (very nice to get a 2nd Westin, much less an 8 story version!) than there is in the new Quintiles HQ (a nice 10 story building). I'm very excited to see Quintiles continue to establish itself in the RTP region.

And instead of a sprawling 2-story campus like some of the other RTP companies, they're going vertical!

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1. There is a Hilton Garden going up near the TTC

2. There is plenty of residential behind the TTC and Poyner Place and tons more less than a mile away, with even more being built across the street behind the new Circuit City.

Putting a hotel on the TTC site is plausable, but putting residential adjacent or on the site with the TTC couldn't happen, as there is not enough empty land for such a thing to occur. The remainder of the land around TTC pretty much has all developments planned.

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Correction: This area of Page Rd. including Sheraton Imperial, Davis Park and other offices in the area outside of the park are in the CITY OF DURHAM (which surrounds the park on three side with developed areas). There is actually a part of Raleigh near Briar Creek that creeps into Durham County while there is a part of Durham that creeps into Wake County in the vicinity.

Basically the cities are growing together. I would rather see growth happen here in a dense fashion vs. into outstretches of chatham and eastern and southern wake counties. The buildings along Page/Hopson Rd. have been located closer to the road but still in a non-pedestrian friendly manner.

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I posted this in the biotech thread, but will move it here...

Does anyone know if Quintels owns their offices on 54 near 540? If so, do they have any plans for that land once employess move to this building? It could be a good mixed use site, if done right.

That is/was their "sprawling campus", but these plans show they want to grow up instead of growing out, which is good news.

I think the two Westins, the Umstead, the downtown Raleigh Marriott, the Rennisance under construction at North Hills, the two announced Alofts (Airport and downtown Raleigh) and the Hotel Indigo near Miami Blvd and Old Page road will be enough mid-high end hotel rooms for the RTP area for a few years. The Radisson RTP is going to look quite shabby by comparison when everything else comes on line. Downtown Durham might get something as the performing arts center gets closer to completion -- maybe Greenfire has something planned with the new Sun Trust tower or converting the old one? But so far it looks like the hotels are stacking up in the extreme southern end of the city -- RTP and the Southpoint area.

The Nelson/Imperial area is getting more retail -- a starbucks is opening soon near the Page/Slater intersection across from Coastal Federal Credit Union. Hopefully there will be more residentail near the Triangle Metro center. It would be cool if the 540 corridor south of 40 was "live work play" urban, and not just "work" urban. The Lenovo buildings are visible from there, and Fidelity, Cisco, etc. will hopefully keep RTP going for years.

(edited to add links to other threads)

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I know it is Durham per my comment ("It is in Durham county but so near the airport only 2 exits away.

" ) but as I stated (or meant to) , this is not what one would consider Durham proper even if Durham city took this for tax and area reasons. It is on the Raleigh side of RTP in Durham and near the airport. I worked in this area years ago and actually today work 2 exits down in RTP.

Sorry if I was not clear.

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^^^

Ask 10 different people and you'll get 10 different answers, but in my book, the size of the building or its architectural style do not alone constitute an urban design.

If the building is set back behind rows and rows of parking spaces, or is built along the street but the only entrance faces the parking lot, then it's a suburban design. Most of Imperial Center fits the latter mold. An more urban design that could be done quite easily would place an entrance along the street as well as the parking area.

An office building that big will probably have some sort of cafeteria or food service. It would also be cool if rather than a conventional cafeteria, they had some open-to-the-public restaurants on the bottom floor instead. There's a surprising lack of retail options in that area given the number of office workers in close proximity.

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Jones, Orulz, Thanks. It is interesting that there isn't a set definition of 'urban'. Mine is close to yours.

I would rather have seen this Westin go either in the Triangle Metro Center area, or replace the stripmall like development on 54 between Davis and 55. Lots of 'urban' potential there.

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If you think there is more Durham-bashing-Raleigh than Raleigh-bashing-Durham, then with all due respect, you're crazy. Take a look at WRAL's message boards. Note the frequent racist undertones in messages, such as the constant reference to picking up KFC after a drive-by. Absolutely disgusting. Or look at the numbers on perceptions and attitudes of Durham, and how the differ between Wake, Orange, and the nation as a whole.
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Wow. I have never seen a Raleigh blog that posted anti-Durham sentiment, "wittly" or otherwise. WRAL's signal reaches to I-95 to the east, the Virginia state line to the north, Orange/Chatam to the west and Fayetville and the Sandhills to the south. A large number of its message board posters probably don't live within Raleigh city limits, but that is proof of "Raleigh-bashing-Durham?" Um, no. The posters are just as racist about crimes committed by minorities in Raleigh as they are in Durham. WRAL occassionally does not offer a comments section for Durham crime stories. But any Raleigh story will have a "see this doesn't just happen in Durham" comment.
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