insideyournwa.com

It seems that nobody took Walmart’s new tagline more seriously than Walmart’s own company Sam’s Club.  Sam’s Club plans to move their home office into a new building that they recently acquired for a very good price.

Over the course of several months all of the residents of Northwest Arkansas saw a huge building going up just off of Moberly Ln. in Bentonville.  During the time it was being built it wouldn’t have been anything out of the ordinary because of all of the offices being built except for the size of it.  This building was not like other buildings going up at the same time, it was huge.

While going up I can remember driving by every day waiting for a sign to go up announcing what was going in there.  I simply did not believe someone was building such a building without having at least one huge tenant lined up.  That sign never surfaced.  I asked around and even with my contacts I could not get an answer as to who was going to inhabit that building.  Something like a World Trade Center?  Is a Walmart Vendor moving their home office?  Nobody seemed to know.

Fast forward to a few months ago, the building has been done for a while and still no sign of a tenant.  In our current market we are becoming used to seeing vacant properties, but this is a different story.  At 375,000 square feet, this building is a glut of unoccupied space that was killing our statistical chance at growth.  There would never be another building built, or another large company considering our community with a vacancy rate so high.

Then a few days ago a surprising story broke out that the mammoth building was sold.  The unlikely buyer?  Sam’s Club corporate offices.  They reportedly plan to move the Sam’s Club office from the buildings next door to Walmart’s home office and into this building.  The question is: why?

Well there are really a few great reasons, and a few stretches that I will present as well.  First of all Sam’s Club was able to buy this building for far less than they could build it for.  They did not have enough space as it was and their neighbor (Walmart) also is out of space so it makes sense to buy a building if it is cheaper.  Finally with thousands of people working at Sam’s Club home office being moved the burden of parking felt by all Walmart and Sam’s Club employees will finally be lessened.

Now for a little bit of imagination.  This building is right next to 540, and could potentially have great ingress and egress.  There is also a bunch of land all around the building that is up for grabs.  What if acquiring this building is part of a larger plan to move operations to a more convenient place.  Walmart could easily build a few buildings to house their operations as well.  It doesn’t seem likely but it would make great sense after all it is where the world comes to do business.

One thing is for sure - Sam’s Club is saving money and living better.  Walmart doesn’t own a single building that looks like a major Fortune 500 company let alone the largest, but now Sam’s does.