W. Averell Harriman State Office Building Campus

The land totals roughly 330 acres (130 ha) and over 3 million square feet (280,000 m2) of office space,[1] and about 7,000 state employees work there.

[7] Starting with Governor Hugh Carey in the 1970s, policy has been to relocate workers from the Harriman Campus and other suburban settings to the various downtowns of the Capital District; Albany, Schenectady and Troy.

[8][9] The plan was originally envisioned in 2003 as a bold move to completely eliminate the ring road, demolish the existing buildings, and construct a hotel, commercial, residential, and high tech office space all integrated with the surrounding neighborhoods.

In 2006 Columbia Development purchased 12.6 acres (5.1 ha) of surface-parking north of Washington Ave for $4.2 million to add to its growing Patroon Creek Corporate Center.

Buildings 1 and 1a were slated to be demolished in 2006 as part of that Albany Plan, funded with the proceeds from the parking lot sale to Columbia Development.

Two very different proposals were put forth, one by the Howard Group that kept to the original idea of integration, retail, and residential space and demolition of existing structures, the other by Columbia Development.

Columbia Development's proposal, which would keep the state office buildings and privatize the land putting it back on the tax rolls piecemeal as tenants were lined up, was the one chose by the HRTDC.

Recently 200 employees of the Office of Real Property Services have been moved from downtown Albany to the campus, as well as plans for a new 3-story building to house a laboratory for 50 workers of the Department of Agriculture.

[17] Below the Harriman Campus is a two-story underground bunker designed to withstand a nuclear attack, adjacent to the State Police Headquarters.

This bunker was built over 40 years ago to assure continuation of the government of the state of New York in case of an emergency during the Cold War.

As originally built it was to accommodate 400 people for up to two weeks, during the late 1990s it received a $1 million renovation to house the State Emergency Management Office (SEMO) in response to concerns over the Y2K bug.

[18] It has been brought to full-operation multiple times, including the following: once on January 1, 2000 to monitor the Y2K bug, then again after the September 11th attacks,[19] and again during both responses to Hurricane Irene & Tropical Storm Lee (2011) and Superstorm Sandy.

[15] The Capital District Transportation Authority (CDTA) runs public transit lines through the campus connecting it to the surrounding region.