The city of Wilmington closed on its new downtown campus once home to PPD and, later, Thermo Fisher Scientific just over a year ago.

Now, city officials are looking to make changes to the building to better accommodate city operations.

Since summer 2023, more than 300 city employees have moved in while officials plan for the city’s future in the region’s tallest building. Earlier this week Aubrey Parsely, the city’s director of economic development, and Deputy City Manager Chad McEwen outlined plans for the building during a presentation to the Wilmington City Council.

The city of Wilmington purchased the building, a 1,022-space parking deck and two undeveloped adjacent tracts for $68 million – $43.3 million less than the facility’s $111.3 million appraised value – last summer.

The building opened in 2007 as the headquarters of PPD, a Wilmington-based pharmaceutical firm acquired by Thermo Fisher Scientific in 2021. Just four months after the acquisition, Thermo Fisher said it would explore selling the 12-story building and surrounding campus.

So far, approximately 200,000 square feet have been activated for city and public use, Parsley said.

City staff were able to minimize move-in costs by working within the footprint of office space left by Thermo Fisher and moving desks and other furniture from the former city offices, Wilmington’s Communications Director Jerod Patterson told the Business Journal.

But other important facets of city government need to be addressed, such as where the Wilmington City Council meets, officials said.

“The fact of the matter is, there are just some functions we cannot shoehorn into the building and council chambers is one of them,” Parsley told the city council this week.

City leaders have plans to create a large meeting room for the city council and other boards, create a customer service center area for the public and enhance building security, among other upgrades.

The bulk of the improvements will take place on the building’s ground floor where the council chambers and customer service center are proposed, McEwen said. The proposed chambers would hold more than 200 people and connect to a nearby private conference room and overflow rooms for meeting attendees. The meeting room would also be available for use by the building's tenants, according to Patterson.

Areas housing the city’s IT department and archives on the second floor would see security and safety upgrades while space on the third floor would be divided to create areas for the various departments, including the city clerk’s office, fire marshall, the police department, emergency management and, eventually, traffic services.

Other building-wide upgrades include installing access-controlled doorways, improvements to bring the building into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and a generator analysis.

The city is working with architecture firm LS3P and contractor Monteith Construction on the design and construction. Initial estimates projected the improvements will cost the city approximately $6.3 million, McEwen said, but that price tag is expected to change in the coming months as plans move closer to completion.

Meanwhile, city staff have worked to lease space in the building.

There are currently nine active leases in Skyline Center, including a lease to Thermo Fisher Scientific on floors five and six. The leases bring in just over $2.4 million in revenues or about two-thirds of the building’s annual operating cost, according to Parsley.

Building tenants include the Wilmington and Beaches Convention & Visitors Bureau, nonprofit group Leading Into New Communities Inc. (LINC), Local Government Federal Credit Union, TOVA Wealth and Protocase, a rapid manufacturing and prototyping firm based in Canada. Three Friends Coffee has also established a cafe on the building’s ground floor that serves city staff and the public.

Civic Federal Credit Union, which caters to local government employees, recently opened its doors on the ground floor of the Skyline Center. President and CEO Dwayne Naylor said the credit union plans to establish a civics education center for the public.

"This is just the start," he said Friday, "but the vision for where we're going is so exciting. I want our members and the public just to watch because it's going to be really, really cool."

The city is in the process of negotiating four leases that would cover a combined 31,000 square feet and bring in $760,000 in revenue, bringing the city’s lease revenue to more than $3 million – roughly 80 to 85% of the building’s operating costs.

“It is an economic development tool of substance for us,” Parsley said about Skyline Center, “and certainly is something we hope to continue to build on into the future.”

More on the city of Wilmington's transition into the Skyline Center will be featured in the next print issue of the Greater Wilmington Business Journal, which comes out on Sept. 6.