Walmart Trades its Warehouse HQ for a Campus With a Rooftop Bar

Walmart hopes a posh new campus with amenities ranging from pickleball to child care will soften the blow for workers being ushered back into the office.

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The world’s largest retailer said in May that it would cut hundreds of corporate jobs and ask most remote employees to return to offices. Most relocations will be to Walmart’s headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas.

Walmart is gearing up to open a new 350-acre campus in Bentonville next year, just two miles down the road from the famously drab office that has been the company’s home base since Sam Walton opened the first store in 1962.

The site will have 12 office buildings, 10 miles of walking and biking trails, a rooftop bar, a hotel, and a child-care center. A new fitness center will house pickleball courts and hot yoga classes.

It’s an about-face for Walmart. The company has long prioritized investing in stores and other consumer-facing aspects of the business, rather than its corporate spaces, Cindi Marsiglio, Walmart’s senior vice president of corporate real estate, said in an interview.

Read the rest of Jaewon Kang 's story here.

Readers: What at-work amenities would make returning to the office more realistic or appealing for you? Share your comments below.

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