NC’s Blue Cross to shift HQ to Durham [The Herald-Sun, Durham, N.C.]

May 31--DURHAM -- The state's largest health insurer, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, is planning to vacate the Chapel Hill headquarters that it's occupied since 1973.

The insurer plans to consolidate operations at a campus on University Drive in Durham where it already has employees working in existing buildings. The insurer has purchased an additional two buildings on the campus for $10 million.

"We'll ultimately leave our Chapel Hill building through a series of phased moves starting later this year," said Lew Borman, a spokesman for the insurer. "And while we don't have a definitive date for leaving the headquarters, we expect to relocate the majority of our employees in the building by the end of 2014."

At the end of last year, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina had about 900 employees in the headquarters building. In total, the insurer employs more than 4,000 people in Chapel Hill, Durham, Winston-Salem and Charlotte.

The fate of the headquarters building is not determined yet. Borman said the insurer will be working with local officials for its disposition. The rhomboid, glass headquarters building off of U.S. 15-501 has 240,293 square feet of space on almost 39 acres.

"We've been working closely with Chapel Hill officials, letting them know that really when we took a look at making further efficiencies that everything was on the table, and this was going to be a difficult decision," he said.

The insurer has been reviewing its real estate portfolio for "some time," Borman said.

Last year in January, the insurer sold 47 acres of land and seven buildings in Chapel Hill to Health System Properties on behalf of UNC Health Care.

The price was $14.25 million for the land and the buildings, which are located in the Eastowne area of the town. The health insurer sold the land and buildings in order to cut administrative costs.

"The reason (is), the market and timing provided a real opportunity to get this valuable property, which is already near our existing Durham buildings at a favorable price that's less than both the appraised, and tax value," Borman said of the move and the purchase of the additional Durham property. He added that it helps the insurer in an "ongoing need to reduce operating costs, to be more efficient" and to create a central campus.

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