Philly wins another new corporate HQ as Harsco follows Rite Aid to Philly

On the heels of Rite Aid’s announcement that it will move its corporate headquarters to Philadelphia, a second Central Pennsylvania company has said it will relocate to the City of Brotherly Love. 

International industrial services firm Harsco Corporation, which employs about 12,000 employees in 30 countries, announced plans this week to move around 100 white-collar jobs from Cumberland County to Center City.  The relocation comes as a sign of progress for Philadelphia’s business district, which was hit hard by the pandemic and continues to see reduced occupancy in its skyline-defining towers.

For the manufacturing and logistics firm that has operated out of the Harrisburg area since the 1850s, the move also represents forward momentum.

Rite Aid earlier stated that there would be no job losses linked to the move, and that it would pivot to a “remote-first” model orbiting around new “collaboration hubs,” including a major new office in the South Philadelphia base. 

Harsco spokesman Jay Cooney said the company will pursue a more conventional office structure downtown.

“We will be in the center of the city in Philadelphia. We are going back to working face-to-face,” he said.

In a statement, Harsco reps say they hope to complete relocation by January 2023.

“For more than 165 years, Harsco has called South Central Pennsylvania home. We have traveled a long and exciting road, and we are enthusiastic about writing the next chapters in our story as we move our corporate headquarters to Philadelphia,” wrote CEO Nick Grasberger, in a statement.

The announcement came just three days after Rite Aid made news with the decision to move its primary headquarters from the Harrisburg region to the Philadelphia Navy Yard.

Both companies cited the need to tap larger talent pools, while Rite Aid cited the increasing popularity of remote work during the pandemic as driving its relocation.