Epic Games is buying an old shopping mall – with almost one million square meters of space – and plans to transform it into its new global headquarters by 2024.
The deal, first reported by the Triangle Business Journal, gives Epic the 980,000-square-foot Cary Towne Center for $ 95 million. Cary Towne Center is approximately 3 miles from Epic’s current headquarters.
Epic Games has been based in Cary, North Carolina since 1999, and has 2,200 employees in its global workforce. The company, which is best known for developing the Unreal Engine and Fortnite, has about two dozen subsidiaries and studios in other locations around the world, which have since acquired or established more than half of them Fortnite Battle Royale launched at the end of 2017.
The 87-acre Cary Towne Center, like many malls in the United States, has struggled to stay open because anchor tenants have left or closed completely, thanks to online shopping trends. Raleigh WRAL-TV noted that only a few stores remain open there, and that a large portion of the mall has been cordoned off. Its current owners raised it for $ 31 million in 2019 and got the Cary Town Council to approve the rezoning, which allows for office use, hotel rooms and multiple family homes, in addition to commercial space.
It is unclear how many of these plans will continue under Epic, but due to the rezoning, Epic could start on its new campus immediately. The company said it would work with the city of Cary on a $ 193 million sports and recreation center planned for the site. A spokesman for Epic Games told the Triangle Business Journal that the campus will include office buildings and recreational spaces.
The private ownership of Epic Games reported a round of $ 1.78 billion in new funding in August 2020 and valued itself at $ 17.3 billion. The company plans to expand its existing location in Cary, which has been owned since 2015, with a 500,000-square-foot facility that will accommodate up to 2,000 employees. These plans are down, reports WRAL.