Eli Lilly and Co. will move all 1,000 employees at its Faris campus on South Meridian Street in Indianapolis to its Lilly
Corporate Center complex on McCarty Street beginning in late June, a company spokesman said Monday morning.
Lilly’s ongoing staff cuts have reduced its need for the Faris space, and the company wants to locate its employees
on the same campus as part of a new business structure.
IBJ reported
on Lilly’s relocation discussions last August, after the company hired CB Richard Ellis to lease the 465,000 square
feet on the Faris campus. Lilly told IBJ in October that it would move all 1,000 employees.
Lilly began construction on its $58 million Faris campus in 2001 with development partner Kite Realty Corp. It opened in
late 2002. The campus includes the renovated Faris and Brougher buildings, a new 150,000-square-foot office building and a
1,550-space parking garage—all west of Meridian Street between Merrill and South streets.
The site is listed as still available on CB Richard Ellis’ Web site, although Lilly spokesman Ed Sagebiel said the
company could occupy it in another capacity.
“We don’t have a definitive decision on what we will do with the site,” he said. “We could move different
teams into that site. We’re looking at various options.”
Lilly now is renovating a building on its corporate campus to house the Faris employees. The renovation will do away with
cubicles and include more open work settings and common areas. Lilly hopes the new office environment will help its employees
collaborate better as they work to launch and market new drugs.
Specifically, research teams will be matched with business-unit employees to move potential products quicker to market, Sagebiel
said.
In September, Lilly formalized the strategy under the name Development Center of Excellence. It also said it would cut 5,500
jobs worldwide in the next two years.
“Collocating a critical mass of our Indianapolis-based Development Center of Excellence employees, discovery &
clinical research teams, and business unit employees will better enable us to deliver improved outcomes to individual patients
as soon as possible,” Lilly CEO John Lechleiter said in a statement.
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