Audemars Piguet is moving its North American service center from Clearwater, Florida, to Raleigh, North Carolina.
AP has leased 63,000 square feet of space in Raleigh Iron Works, a mixed use development spanning over one million square feet of residential, office and industrial usage.
Wake County’s economic development agency, which is overseeing the development, says that AP moving in will create 105 jobs and will be its largest tenant to date.
Audemars Piguet is expected to invest $22 million into the service center, which will handle maintenance and repairs for the brand.
Upgrading its service centre capability will be key to Audemars Piguet achieving its long-stated aim of launching a certified pre-owned program similar to that of Rolex.
In a recent corporate update, the company said that today’s watch buyers increasingly tend towards serial acquisition, enjoying ownership for two or three years before moving on to a renewed search for another piece.
“The market for pre-owned high-end watches has never been so dynamic, nor so fraught with hazard for the buyer, who can end up paying a high price for a luxury brand of uncertain provenance and condition, if not a fake watch. This is why Audemars Piguet is getting more directly involved in the fate of its watches. The Manufacture intends in the near future to be the preferred option for buying back its own watches to ensure that they are coming back on the market in a perfect condition, while giving its buyers the right of first refusal whenever they are thinking of selling,” AP says.