Coming Home: Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Completes Move to Durham

On June 24, 2016, the last of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina employees working out of the iconic headquarters building in Chapel Hill moved up the road to the company’s new Durham campus. That was the day Blue Cross officially became a Durham company.

Unofficially, Durham has served as the company’s spiritual home for many years. The large tract of land on 15/501 where the previous headquarters was built in 1973 was chosen specifically because it straddled the Durham-Chapel Hill border, a symbolically neutral location for the Durham-based Hospital Care and the Chapel Hill-based Hospital Saving Associations that had merged in 1968 to become Blue Cross.

Originally housing 800 employees, the headquarters building was designed to accommodate another 200 staffers. Fifteen years after it opened, HQ was bursting at the seams with 1,500 employees. As our state’s population grew – along with its health care and insurance needs – housing the company’s entire workforce in a single building became impractical and eventually, impossible.

Our new Durham campus spans the length of University Place and Ivy Creek Boulevard, running parallel to University Drive. In total, the nine buildings offer 650,000 square feet of office space. The campus has been designed to foster collaboration across the range of company functions, with several buildings employing open-office designs to encourage communication. The campus features a network of walking paths that not only enable employees to enjoy the outdoors during a lunch break, but also facilitate easy access to all of our different departments and functions.

For many Blue Cross employees, the relocation feels like coming home to a place we never left. Our deep connection to Durham stems not only from decades of serving customers here, but also from the many community support initiatives and volunteer projects we’ve undertaken in Durham over the years. From feeding hungry families through the East Durham Children’s Initiative to revitalizing neighborhoods by building Habitat for Humanity homes to nurturing the vibrant arts culture by supporting the Durham Performing Arts Center, Blue Cross has long cherished its strong bond with Durham.

Nearly 4,000 employees are working from our Durham campus, pursuing the company’s mission to improve the health and well-being of our customers and communities. We’re working in Durham to make North Carolina a better place to live for all of us.

To mark our official relocation to Durham, Blue Cross will hold a company-wide Day of Service in Durham on August 24. Employees will donate thousands of man-hours in a single day, giving their time to a number of community causes across Durham, from a Habitat for Humanity project to a KaBOOM! playground build to packaging Red Cross kits for the homeless and others. After all, it’s the neighborly thing to do.

Blue Cross is deeply rooted in Durham – and now we blossom here.