Four years after announcing plans to bring nearly 400 jobs to Durham, tech firm Policygenius is looking to sublease office space downtown.
The company, which is based in New York and runs an online insurance brokerage, recently listed 48,000-square-feet at the 555 Mangum building.
The news comes more than a year after the company confirmed layoff reports. And it also comes at a time when multiple technology firms are re-evaluating their office footprints in light of the rise of remote working.
High hopes for Durham
In early 2022, prospects were high for Policygenius in Durham. The company had closed a $125 million funding round to grow its online insurance marketplace. It had 230 employees in Durham – its "dual headquarters" – with plans to keep hiring.
But collapsing tech stocks, interest rate hikes, inflation and an industrywide valuation crunch led to tightening across the tech sector. In June of last year, Policygenius laid off about 25 percent of its staff, amounting to about 170 workers. And dozens of those impacted employees were confirmed to be in the Triangle.
Toady, with its Durham space up for sublease, the company is not saying how many workers it has in the region. In an email, a spokeswoman said Policygenius has completely vacated its offices at 555 Mangum. She said the firm still had “a significant number of employees in the Raleigh-Durham area" but did provide a specific number.
“As we’re seeing throughout the country, hybrid work is changing the way companies look at office space and that’s true for Policygenius as well,” spokeswoman Brooke Niemeyer said.
Just over a year ago, Policygenius CEO Jennifer Fitzgerald told Triangle Business Journal she was not worried about the remote work trend and that office utilization had started to “pick up.”
But a lot can change in a matter of months, evidenced by the fact that Policygenius is not the only Triangle company looking to offload office space.
SAS in Cary has put two buildings at its headquarters campus on the market – a first for the analytics giant. The company, often praised for its workplace culture and office amenities, calls the decision a “direct result of remote work post-Covid.”
And insightsoftware recently listed nearly 64,000 square feet for sublease at its headquarters on Six Forks Road in Raleigh. A spokeswoman said the 2,400 person firm has "no intentions of slowing down," but is also committed to remaining a remote-first workforce.
"That worldwide footprint and work-from-home flexibility has provided more room than we needed" in our Raleigh office, she said, adding that should the full office be subleased, "we expect to find a new, smaller location in the Raleigh area for insighters who still wish to work in the office."
Also in Raleigh, SoftPro listed more than 22,000 square feet of space for sublet at its building on Falls of Neuse Road. The firm declined to comment about the move.
The overall office market has shown signs of stabilization improving – at least on paper. According to TBJ research, office sublease inventory declined to 3.9 million square feet in the second quarter, compared to the previous quarter where sublease inventory topped 4.2 million square feet. Right now it’s about 6 percent of the region’s total office inventory, compared to 7 percent the previous quarter.
Overall, the Triangle still has an office vacancy rate above 20 percent when including sublease space.
