Home Care In Morrisville, NC

Pfizer, the drug manufacturing giant and one of the Triangle’s largest employers, confirmed Friday it will shutter two Triangle area facilities as part of a broader $3.5 billion cost-saving initiative.

The sites are the company’s Research Triangle Park office near Morrisville and its clinical manufacturing facility just outside the Park in Durham.

Pfizer did not disclose how many jobs will be impacted. In an email to The News & Observer that “All job-related decisions will be made with transparency, compassion, and respect, and in compliance with applicable laws.”

Under federal law, employers must file a WARN Notice 60 days ahead of closing a site that impacts at least 50 employees. Pfizer has not filed a notice of layoffs, according to the N.C. Department of Commerce website.

The Durham closure comes only two years after Pfizer opened that site as part of $66 million investment by the company. The 85,000-square-foot facility focused on gene therapy treatments. This site was expected to add 50 jobs and relocate around 40 workers from Chapel Hill.

On Oct. 13, Pfizer announced it would undergo a multiyear plan to save $3.5 billion, including $1 billion by the end of this year. The company also lowered its yearly revenue forecast due to lower-than-expected sales of its COVID-19 vaccine. Last year, Pfizer reported record revenue fueled by coronavirus vaccine sales.

On Friday, the company said it continues to operate its largest North Carolina facilities in Rocky Mount and Sanford.

According to Wake County Economic Development, Pfizer was among the 20 largest employers in the Triangle region at the start of 2023, with approximately 3,700 workers.

As of Friday evening, multiple Triangle-based Pfizer employees had added the hashtag OpenToWork on their LinkedIn profiles.

Morrisville Mayor T.J. Cawley said he is hopeful any affected workers will land elsewhere locally.

“Overall, I think our area is pretty well buffered from the economic downtown,” he said. “Talent will always move around from company to company. We have such a strong talent pool that companies will keep coming here.”

This story was originally published October 27, 2023, 5:50 PM.

For the first time in the United States, the Major League Cricket professional franchise is hitting off its inaugural season this summer.

And Morrisville is one of the two host destinations for the 19 matches.

Major League Cricket announced its schedule of games split between two venues, Grand Prairie Stadium in Grand Prairie, Texas, and Church Street Park in Morrisville.

The league’s first season opens July 13 in Grand Prairie and the championship game is set for July 30. Matches in Morrisville begin July 20.

The new league is comprised of many of the world’s top cricketers competing on six teams, including the Seattle Orcas, MI New York, Washington Freedom, San Francisco Uniforms, Los Angeles Knight Riders and the Texas Super Kings.

Here’s the schedule and where you can get tickets.

In recent years, Morrisville has become a hot spot for cricket, a ball-and-bat game played between two teams of 11 players.

In 2018, the town hosted the first international cricket matches at Church Street Park as part of the ICC Americas Sub Regional T20 World Cup Qualifier. The tournament brought teams from Brazil, Panama, Canada, and across the country.

For the past two years, the town hosted the Minor League Cricket championship games at Church Street Park, also the Morrisville Raptors’ home field.

The town has committed to expanding the park, at 5800 Cricket Pitch Way, including increasing seating capacity to 3,500, additional parking, and new broadcast infrastructure.

Seven of the 19 matches this season will be played at Church Street Park.

The first game is on July 20 between the Washington Freedom and the Los Angeles Knight Riders at 5:30 p.m.

Here’s the full Morrisville schedule:

The league then heads back to Grand Prairie, for two eliminator matches, a challenger match, followed by the championship match on July 30.

More information about Major League Cricket and the players for each team can be found at majorleaguecricket.com.

Tickets for games in Morrisville start at $15, and fans are able to buy tickets to both individual games and a doubleheader.

Priority tickets can be found at majorleaguecricket.com/tickets. Fans can buy tickets for a group of 15 or more, by contacting [email protected] for information on special pricing.

Plans to expand Church Street Park are underway and the work is expected to be completed before the first MLC game on July 20.

Some of the new additions include new grandstand bleachers, safety netting, athlete seating, equipment storage areas, stairs, sidewalks, and other features.

The park hosts several athletic and recreational activities, including tennis and outdoor fitness. There are two picnic shelters with a capacity of 50 people each and concrete chess and checkerboards and cornhole boards.

More information about the park and other events hosted this summer can be found on the town’s website.

This story was originally published June 16, 2023, 12:40 PM.

Pfizer will close facilities in Durham and Morrisville, part of a company wide “realignment” being made, according to a statement, “to operate more efficiently and effectively.”

The company, which includes a COVID-19 vaccine in its vast portfolio, reported a drop in sales through the first half of 2023, but expected to see sales rebound with the advent of fall COVID cases and vaccination pushes. Pfizer’s profit sank 77% to $2.33 billion in the second quarter while adjusted earnings totaled 67 cents per share. That topped average analyst expectations for 57 cents per share. Revenue dropped 54% to $12.73 billon, which missed forecasts.

“It’s never a good thing when we see jobs go away,” Steve Rao, Morrisville Town Council, said.

This is disappointing news for Morrisville council member Steve Rao, who represents the other Triangle location where Pfizer is closing up shop.

It’s a cost-cutting move -with Pfizer citing a drop in sales for COVID products.

Despite the job cuts at Pfizer, Rao says Morrisville has the momentum for companies to invest in life sciences.

“New jobs can be created, supporting new technology and new technology,” Rao said. That’s why I remain very positive about our economic outlook.”

Pfizer booked about $100 billion in total revenue last year, largely on the boost provided by COVID-19 vaccine sales. Company stock closed Friday at $30.11, down 3.37%.

The company has not filed notice with the state as required under certain circumstances when facilities are closed or mass layoffs planned. The company has more than 80,000 employees worldwide and about 4,000 in North Carolina.

The company statement pointed out that the two largest NC facilities — in Sanford and in Rocky Mount — are unaffected in this round of belt-tightening.

The Rocky Mount facility, which makes injectable medicines used by hospitals, employs about 3,200 people and was damaged in a tornado in July. It has since resumed regular operations.

The Durham Clinical Manufacturing Facility had only been open since December 2021, when plans were to create 50 jobs and relocate 40 employees from Chapel Hill. It is not clear how many people were working there when the closure was announced.

From starting off as caterers to doing a lot of business through corporations, Aisha White of the Kupkake Fairy finds working in Morrisville is sweet.

"Over time, it just grew," White said. "People started knowing who we were and it's been really great as a minority owned business owner."

The town of more than 31,000 people has not only grown to become one of WalletHub's 2023 top ten small cities to start a business, but a hub for life sciences with two bio manufacturing facilities taking shape on both sides of a portion of McCrimmon Parkway.

"I heard at a conference that the reason we are a good place to do business is because we're great place to live, and that's what we're going for first," Morrisville Mayor TJ Cawley said. "We have Pathways, we have Spark, and another one, Discovery at Watkins Road, and these are life sciences that are coming into the area because we have such a great workforce."

Raleigh-based vice president at King Street Properties Tim Skender said Morrisville is strategically located at the heart of the Research Triangle region, which is why it's the future site of Pathway Triangle, a one-million-square-foot biomanufacturing campus.

"Life science development is in a big growth moment," Skender said. "When you think about it, people (lab technicians, scientists) they want to be in the most convenient location with amenities and Morrisville checks those boxes."

The town also checks the box for talent, according to Skender.

"It's not just the low taxes, the low cost of doing business, the great quality of life that people have," Skender said. "It's that the talent is being produced here at Wake Tech, at Durham Tech, at Alamance Community College. Both the PhDs and the lab technicians, everybody that served that facility is being trained here and wants to live here."

For Mayor Cawley, it's a win-win when it comes to growth and opportunity despite limiting factors, such as land.

"We're surrounded on all sides, so we can't grow outwards," Cawley said. "There's a big push to have more density but there really isn't land to do that even. What's left is mostly in the airport overlay so we can't build single-family housing there anyway. So essentially, we're reaching the top of our residence but we'll keep on growing our businesses."

Cawley said the town is also working on developing a town center, which they're currently discussing with a private developer.

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A high school will soon be named after the fast-growing western Wake County town of Morrisville.

The Wake County school board’s facilities committee recommended Wednesday naming the school Morrisville High when it’s scheduled to open in 2027.

School board vice chair Chris Heagarty said Morrisville town leaders and residents would embrace the name.

“The majority of the residents and the Town Council feel a lot of civic pride around the idea of a Morrisville High School and would like to see it named Morrisville High School,” said Heagarty, who represents Morrisville on the board.

The full board is expected to vote on the school name on June 6.

Once it’s approved, only the towns of Wendell and Zebulon would not have a high school named after their municipalities. Neither have a district high school in their town limits.

Due to high land prices, Morrisville didn’t get its first district high school until this school year when the Wake Early College of Information and Biotechnologies opened on Wake Technical Community College’s RTP campus. Even then, Heagarty noted that some town leaders had wanted to name that school after the town.

The school board recently finished acquiring another 34 acres on Wake Tech’s RTP campus for a second high school in Morrisville. Due to the small size of the site, the high school could use a baseball field that might be built in Mills Park in Cary.

On Wednesday, school facilities staff proposed three names: Paramount Parkway High, Parkside High and Morrisville High.

“In the past, board by board have varying positions on whether they want to name it with a town as its name in the title,” said Betty Parker, the district’s senior director of real estate services.

Parker said using the town in the name could lead to the “implicit expectation” from Morrisville residents that they’d attend that school.

Parker said a similar thing could happen if they named it Parkside High because of the presence of nearby Parkside Elementary and the future Parkside Middle.

Paramount Parkway, which is the main road that would be used to access the new school, was recommended because it was a “fairly neutral” option to get the conversation started, Parker said.

“Perfect name suggestions are rare, and this is no exception,” Parker said.

School board chair Lindsay Mahaffey quipped that “PPHS is not going to look good on your branding.”

Heagarty said many parents wouldn’t be familiar with the name of Paramount Parkway. He said the whole community would rally around Morrisville High.

Unlike past boards that objected to using town names for new schools, five of the nine members were newly elected in November.

“We’re going to have that constant battle of folks assuming ownership of that and that they get to go there because they live there,” said new board member Lynn Edmonds. “I understand that challenge but not so much so that we shouldn’t do it.”

This story was originally published May 11, 2023, 5:45 AM.