RALEIGH, N.C. — It’s the heat that Richard Pecorella remembers about the day he moved to North Carolina.

Two years ago, Pecorella was a man with a mission. Bored with South Florida’s hot, flat environment after 29 years in Palm Beach County, he asked for a transfer from IBM Corp., his employer since 1967. He soon found himself heading for the green hills of North Carolina.

The hills were certainly a change, but Pecorrella and his family found a Florida-like 104-degree temperature when they pulled into the driveway of their new home.

“I really didn’t expect that at all,” said Pecorella, now 42 and a software development planner at IBM’s Program Systems Development Laboratory outside Raleigh. “But I haven’t found anything that I really don’t like about this area, and I think anybody moving here will be pleasantly surprised.”

Decisions about moving to North Carolina will become commonplace among South Florida residents who work for IBM. The company announced last week that it would consolidate its personal computer manufacturing at its plants in and around Research Triangle Park near Raleigh.

Nationwide, five IBM plants will be affected, including the personal computer manufacturing operation in Boca Raton. About 1,600 employees in Palm Beach County have been given the choice of accepting a severance package and leaving IBM or moving to North Carolina.

Estimates vary as to how many IBM employees will make the move. “We really don’t know what to expect,” said Ray Mays, communications systems plant manager at an IBM PS/2 manufacturing plant at Research Triangle Park. “It depends on the response in Boca from the folks who are directly affected.”

Mays’ plant already is adding two assembly lines for the PS/2 Model 30, which will be operational by October, he said.

The transplanted Floridians say they don’t miss the palm trees, beaches and pushy attitudes found in South Florida.

“In all the years I spent there, I never knew as many people in my neighborhood as I met here in six months,” Pecarella said. “People are nicer here. They smile at you.”

The evidence of the influx of people and the economic boom that started in Raleigh earlier this decade is evident everywhere.

As soon as visitors step off an airplane at Raleigh-Durham Airport, they step into a modern, colorful terminal. Dallas-based American Airlines opened the $120 million terminal and a new hub operation at the airport a year ago. American expects to employ 5,000 people in the area by the end of this decade.

The gleaming high-tech terminal is only the beginning.

South Florida visitors to Raleigh should feel right at home with the area’s road construction, the huge space-for-lease signs atop office buildings and shopping centers tucked into every corner.

But Joe Stearns, 44, a manager in strategy and planning, said Florida still has more shopping malls. “The benefit to being here is that you don’t spend all your money in shopping malls,” he said.

Raleigh’s economic development leaders are trying to stress new impressions to businesses considering the area for future operations.

North Carolina has managed to diversify its economic base during the past decade, said Alvah Ward, state director of business and industrial development. The economy no longer focuses on manufacturing in the tobacco, textile and furniture industries, but is gaining from high-technology and service companies that are moving into the state.

What is the Triangle area’s drawing card?

“The key to everything that has happened here during the past 30 years is the existence of three major universities in the area,” said George R. Herbert, president of the Research Triangle Institute, a research organization incorporated 30 years ago by Duke University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University.

Graduates of the three universities, which have total enrollment of about 51,000, provide area employers with a ready professional labor force.

The unemployment rate in the Triangle area has leveled off at about 3 percent. Statistics compiled by the Raleigh Chamber of Commerce show that while the labor force in the Raleigh-Durham area increased by almost 2 percent during the past year, the number of unemployed decreased by almost 5 percent in the same period.

Population in the Triangle area has increased by 2.8 percent annually. Last year, 675,804 people lived in the area. Chamber statistics also show average household income to be $35,636.

“I think this is a more realistic place to live,” said Joe Stearns, who transferred to Raleigh two years ago. “You can drive through neighborhoods here and see Chevys and Fords parked in the driveway. In Boca all you saw were Mercedes and BMWs. I think this is a good change for my kids.”

The transition has been an easy one for his two children who still live at home, he said. He is pleased with the school system and says his children have more educational opportunities.

A slower pace and a not-so-transient population have allowed his wife and four children “to return to a basic lifestyle,” he said. Although statistics show that Raleigh may be growing just as quickly as South Florida, Stearns said he does not think growth is as obvious in the Triangle area.

One attribute common to both South Florida and the Raleigh area is the vacancy rate among commercial real-estate projects. According to John Falls, a Raleigh real-estate analyst, the office vacancy rate has hovered in the 25 percent to 27 percent range for the past year. Boca Raton has had a vacancy rate in the mid-30 percent range.

“We have a classic case of overbuilding, especially along the I-40 corridor out by the (Research Triangle) Park,” Falls said.

A rush of development activity during 1984 and 1985 was spurred by growth in the park.

Today, some of the offices along Interstate 40 report vacancy rates as high as 60 percent. “You’ve got some people that are hemorrhaging out there. The simple fact was the space was premature,” Falls said.

He said he expects development to catch up. It’s just a matter of time, like in South Florida.

Housing in the Raleigh area is a buyers’ market, Falls said. With a solid inventory of single-family housing, new residents have a wide choice of styles and prices.

Pecorella, who used to live in Boynton Beach, said he noticed a big difference in the available housing when he came to Raleigh. “I think you get a lot for your money here. We have an attic and a fireplace, and it’s a little more homey than Boynton Beach.”

There’s also one more difference. Although the Pecorellas were sweating it out when they arrived, they are now waiting for a mall to open close to home so they can buy winter clothes.

COST OF LIVING

Cost of living comparison between Boca Raton and Raleigh, N.C. Figures are what is required to meet a mean set at $50,000 income for a family of four, with two cars and a 24,000-square-foot house with eight rooms (four bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths):

INCOME

Boca: $53,000

Raleigh: $51,000

HOME

Boca: $185,000

Raleigh: $166,000

TAX LIABILITY

Boca: $7,222

Raleigh: $9,348*

*N.C. has state income tax between 3 percent and 7 percent.

SOURCE: Runzheimer International