1,900 More Employees Coming to GSK Campus

GlaxoSmithKline will be relocating about 1,900 employees to its Upper Providence campus over the next few years, the company announced Tuesday.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that the London-based company announced the decision to employees via a webcast from Upper Merion, where the company will reportedly vacate about 1.4 million square feet of office space.

About 400 employees will remain in Upper Merion, according to the Inquirer.

The move will approximately double the number of employees traveling to work at the Upper Providence campus, which is located just south of the U.S. Route 422 interchange with Route 29. Between 1,900 and 2,000 employees and contractors work at the facility right now, company spokesperson Melinda Stubbee said Wednesday.

Stubbee said expansions and other changes at the Upper Providence campus will probably be necessary to accommodate the increased worker population. Current employees are being surveyed about future changes to the campus.

"[Employees] are being asked to engage in the planning process," which will proceed through the remainder of 2013, Stubbee said. "The space will need to be updated."

About 1,300 additional employees work at a recently-completed facility in the former Philadelphia Navy Yard. Stubbee said that "lessons learned" from that project, which emphasized environmental sustainability, will go into any new construction at the Upper Providence campus.