Dive Brief:
- Aldi is renovating and expanding its U.S. headquarters in Batavia, Illinois, construction company A M King, which is overseeing the project, announced last week.
- The work entails refurbishing the interiors of three existing office buildings on the 60-acre campus to provide a “more open concept design,” A M King said. A fourth building will be designed and built, bringing the total office square footage on the campus to approximately 250,000 square feet.
- The headquarters expansion comes at a time when Aldi is rapidly opening stores stateside and growing its headcount.
Dive Insight:
The renovations on the three buildings will include updated finishes, glass meeting rooms, energy-efficient lighting, updated HVAC controls, wayfinding, digital meeting room schedulers and adding audio/visual systems for collaborative meetings.
The new 56,000-square-foot building will feature a green roof pollinator garden, fitness center, third-party food service and conference center. A M King said the new structure will be “visually unique” with a two-story atrium and skylight, conversational staircase, covered patio and courtyard with sustainable plantings and artistic facade.
“This new building is intended to invite collaboration through its open spaces, encouraging employees to connect and work together effectively,” Aldi US Director of National Services Facilities Brian Holcombe said in the announcement.
The Batavia project features “significant utility relocation and upgrades, innovative and sustainable design elements, and phasing to accommodate work on different buildings while the campus remains operational,” A M King noted.
The Batavia campus also includes a 496,000-square-foot distribution center.
Aldi and A M King have partnered since 2004, when the construction company built a five-story office building for the grocery chain. A M King did not give a timeline for when the latest expansion project is expected to wrap up.
In March, Aldi said it plans to increase its store footprint by 30%, adding 800 locations across the U.S. through a combination of new openings and store conversions by the end of 2028. That marks the fastest growth rate in the company’s history. Aldi is converting some of the roughly 400 Winn-Dixie and Harveys Supermarket locations it recently acquired from Southeastern Grocers.
Aldi currently lists more than 2,400 U.S. stores on its website.
In September, Aldi US announced plans to hire more than 13,000 store and warehouse employees ahead of the holiday season and store openings the discount grocer has in the pipeline.
