University City Report (PDF) - Charlotte Chamber of Commerce

endorsement for what was, at the time, a nascent
endeavor. Unfortunately, IBM’s plans were slow
to develop. When the company considered
selling some of its acreage to the Billy Graham
Foundation in 1972, URP organizers flew to New
York to meet with IBM leaders in an attempt to
gauge the company’s support and to provide
a push to move forward with their plans. URP
organizers’ persistence was rewarded: after
making minor concessions to the covenant,
IBM announced in 1978 that it would begin
construction on a facility. By 1979 the company
had arrived in URP, and the research park finally
had its flagship tenant.
Other companies followed. By 1987 URP had
12 tenants that employed 8,000 people. Another
significant tenant, Electric Power Research Institute
(EPRI), arrived during that timeframe. This was a
major coup for the research park, since EPRI chose
URP over a location in RTP or Atlanta, Ga. Electronic
Data Systems (EDS) and Verbatim also arrived
during this build-up, and soon URP had become
exactly what Harris and his fellow civic leaders had
envisioned: a hotbed for technology pioneers with
a community steadily growing around it.
The middle years of URP’s existence saw a
shift to back offices and call centers. Though
not necessarily rooted in technology, this
development gave rise to large opportunities for
the research park, as financial firms Wells Fargo
and TIAA-CREF built self-contained facilities on
URP’s acreage. Wells Fargo’s Customer Information
Center (CIC) is often mentioned in the same breath
with the Pentagon simply due to the size and
scope of the building, along with the amenities
offered inside. TIAA-CREF’s facility sits on the other
side of W.T. Harris Boulevard and also boasts an
impressive site that seems more like a college
campus than an office complex. The company
maintains strong ties to UNC Charlotte, which
would certainly please Mr. Harris himself.
But as the new millennium has progressed,
URP has seen a return to its technological
beginnings. DigitalOptics Corporation is a microelectronics,
imaging and optics company based
in San Jose, Calif., that built a gigantic office
facility on-site. SPEED purchased the old Verbatim
building and transformed it into a high-tech
broadcast center. In 2009, global appliance-maker
Electrolux announced its plans to move its North
American headquarters to URP, making it the
largest corporate relocation to Charlotte since
1984. And though IBM relocated to URP’s recently
erected Enovia building, its former facility, now
called Innovation Park, is currently undergoing a
facelift. The multi-tenant and 12-building facility
will soon have a renovated site built in the mold
of the campus located at Google’s headquarters
in Mountain View, Calif.
With its proximity to uptown and Charlotte
Douglas International Airport, its redundant power
infrastructure and its campus-style setting, URP has
proved to be a success after 50 years of existence.
More importantly, it is now poised to grow and
attract new companies — and their employees —
well into the future. This impact on University City
cannot be understated and is evidenced by the
community that now surrounds and supports it.
Companies From Across
The Globe Call University
City Home
Charlotte has certainly seen its share of growth
over the last 20 years. With a population that has
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University City Report 5