See what the new NC Education Campus in Raleigh will look like, inside and out
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- The campus brings UNC System, DPI, NC Community Colleges and Commerce onto one block.
- Construction led by LS3P with Barnhill and Balfour Beatty scheduled to finish by 2028.
- The new NC Education Campus consolidates multiple state education agencies on one block.
The massive construction site in downtown Raleigh, covering a city block, is taking shape as the new North Carolina Education Campus.
The News & Observer has the exclusive first look at all the images of the campus that will bring together the UNC System office, Department of Public Instruction, NC Community Colleges and Department of Commerce all in one building.
Take a look at what the Education Campus will look like, according to site plans shared with The N&O by the Legislative Services Office, which is overseeing the project.
The construction project team is led by LS3P, with subcontractors Barnhill, Balfour Beatty and Metcon. It is scheduled to be completed in December 2027 and open in 2028.
In the middle of areas visited by schoolchildren
Outside the building itself, the site also includes green space meant as a gathering area for visiting schoolchildren and others, either to that campus or at other state government buildings like the Museum of Natural Sciences, the Legislative Building or Museum of History — all within a block away.
‘Creative collisions’ between agencies
State agencies overseeing K-12 education, two-year colleges and four-year schools will work side by side in the new building.
“We want to make the education systems in North Carolina work together,” Legislative Services Office Paul Coble told The N&O in an interview. “And so some of the building design is created in a way to cause ‘creative collisions’ so that they got to see each other, running into each other ... if they’ve got a common problem, they work on it together.”
Coble’s office was given oversight of the project at the behest of Republican legislative leaders in 2022, and funding for the $400 million project has been allocated over multiple spending bills. Lawmakers driving the project are longtime Republican Senate leader Phil Berger and state Republican Rep. Dean Arp, a top House budget writer.
The idea of bringing education and commerce, meaning future jobs, together is that “instead of being disparate locations, there’ll be more conversation about what’s good for education,” Coble said.
Eight stories on one side, six stories plus a rooftop terrace on other side
One side of the building is eight stories tall, and the other side is six stories tall. The side with six stories also has an open-area seventh level for a rooftop terrace.
Hundreds of state employees will move into the building once it opens, with most of them coming from central offices in other state agency buildings like the education building on Wilmington Street, which flanks Halifax Mall.
The four streets surrounding the Education Campus are Jones, Salisbury, Lane and McDowell. The campus block was previously the Administration Building, which was demolished, and a parking lot.
This story was originally published May 6, 2026 at 5:30 AM with the headline "See what the new NC Education Campus in Raleigh will look like, inside and out."
