When Lowe's Companies, Inc., a Fortune 100 home improvement retailer, announced they were building their new corporate campus in Mooresville, North Carolina, the excitement began to bubble. The 169-acre (68-hectare) campus would be home to as many as 8,000 employees, and a first-phase investment of $100 million in 400,000 sq. ft. (37,160 sq. m.) of corporate office space. While build-out plans will happen as necessitated by the company's growth, occupancy of Phase I was completed in January 2004, with thirty percent more employees than first anticipated. Plans have already started for building Phase II.

Lowe's Corporate Campus

        As the site began to come together for what was in the beginning an anonymous office project, company officials told us we should expect additional growth as vendors followed. Boy, what an understatement!
        As Economic Developer I thought vendors meant many sales offices. To my surprise, the first vendor I worked with decided to lease a 28,000-sq.-ft. (2,601-sq.-m.) spec building. We struggled to learn more about vendors and how to prepare for their arrival. Alas, one kind vendor took the Economic Development staff aside to give us some friendly advice – we needed to go to "Vendorville." What is Vendorville?
        Vendorville is the term given to the boomtown surrounding the Wal-Mart headquarters in Northwest Arkansas. An estimated 500 to 700 supporting vendors all clustered within a seven-minute drive of Wal-Mart's corporate headquarters. We mobilized a team to visit Vendorville to learn from their experiences. While Northwest Arkansas anticipates 4,000 to 5,000 vendors in their location in years to come, our numbers will not be quite as staggering. However, we are still anticipating 400 to 600 new vendor companies, and vendors themselves tell us this number could double in five years.
        Why do vendors locate near Wal-Mart and Lowe's? The supporting companies service the buyers with immediate responses to changes in market demand, establish personal relationships with buyers, introduce new products, service the stores, evaluate product displays and negotiate timely transactions. Lowe's maintains a strict "no gift" policy, thus buyers are only able to learn about their merchandise through seeing it in the stores and from vendor representations. They are not able to take their products home for a trial run to see how well they work.

New Vendor Facilities Fairview Center (top) and Resource Plus

        What other excitement has the Lowe's corporate location and vendor network brought to our community?
        • Over 500,000 sq. ft. (46,450 sq. m.) of new, Class A office and flex space available to serve vendors and their growing support network.
        • Discussions of new hotels and a convention center.
        • Lowe's gifts to the community in charitable contributions to build a new library, YMCA, Habitat for Humanity homes, and Fire Department.
        • From vendors, national recognition from names such as Black and Decker, Energizer, Mohawk, General Electric, Henkel Adhesives, etc., as well as significant dollars to other local charities.
        What lessons were learned in Northwest Arkansas and brought home to our community? Expect quick-changing demographics; plan your transportation network now and include mass transit in these plans; buy land for schools now – you cannot afford it later; install as much fiber optics as possible; and work jointly with neighboring communities on infrastructure.
        As a community we are learning to work in the corporate world. We have found that Lowe's is a wonderful community citizen, and what they want from the community in return is a partner. Partnering is what we do best!