New details have emerged about Walmart’s planned new corporate campus in Bentonville, Ark., where the company is based, according to a report by Reuters.
Walmart is one of many large companies that have revealed plans for new corporate campuses in the United States, against the backdrop of President Donald Trump asking American companies to make bigger investments at home.
Walmart’s new HQ was announced in 2017, and it will cover 300 acres and house almost 17,000 employees, with room for more as it grows.
The sprawling campus will have bike trails through it, a park, food trucks, childcare, fitness centers and other amenities. It’s going to have a modern aesthetic design, according to Dan Bartlett, Walmart’s executive vice president of corporate affairs, who is overseeing the project.
The layout will have flexible open floors plans to accommodate both collaboration and privacy. The new headquarters will feature lots of windows and light, tall ceilings, solar panels and a plethora of parking spaces.
“We are striving to attract and retain the best talent in order to win the future of retail and the key component of that is the work environment that we are creating,” Bartlett said.
The plan for a new corporate headquarters has been kept relatively low-key in comparison with other benchmark American companies. Amazon created massive interest and a lot of PR when it announced it was looking for a second HQ, and many cities scrambled to to considered, some even offering billions in tax credits.
Amazon eventually chose Long Island City in New York and Arlington, Virginia. The company soon faced a backlash over tax breaks and housing issues, and it shelved its New York plans.
Apple also recently announced a plan to build a second campus in Austin, Texas for $1 billion that will house 15,000 workers.
Bartlett said Walmart didn’t receive any “special packages or tax breaks that were out of the ordinary” when building its campus.
“Our goal was not to extract things from the community,” he said.
