Walmart to renovate The Walmart Museum
Walmart is making its entire Walmart Museum complex more inclusive, accessible and interactive.
Beginning Nov. 1, 2022, The Walmart Museum, including Walton’s 5&10 (Sam Walton’s second store in Bentonville, Ark., but the first to bear the Walton name) and The Spark Café restaurant will close to undergo an extensive renovation through spring 2024.
The museum began as a more traditional visitor center in 1990 and underwent preservation work in 2011. Walmart founder Sam Walton called the development of the original Walmart Visitor Center "a labor of love.”
During renovations, Walmart will establish a temporary visitor’s center nearby at The Ledger, a 230,000-sq.-ft. community space in downtown Bentonville run by a non-profit local organization. The retailer will also provide a new Spark Café ice cream truck on the Bentonville Square this winter.
“We’re excited about the changes coming to the renovated – and reinvented – Walmart Museum, making it more inclusive, accessible and interactive,” said Cindi Marsiglio, senior VP, corporate real estate, Walmart, in a corporate blog post. “With larger exhibit space, new educational spaces and an enhanced rooftop patio, we look forward to leveraging this new space to evolve the way of telling the Walmart story. And less than a mile from our new home office, the enhanced visitor and associate experience will extend from the museum – where it all started – to our new campus, where we’ll write tomorrow’s history.”
Walmart opening new home office
In November 2021, Walmart had most of its corporate employees return to the office in Bentonville as part of a "new, more flexible way of working.” The company has been opening a new corporate campus in phases across 350 acres of native-seeded greenery, with completion scheduled for 2024.
The new headquarters will offer a dramatic contrast to Walmart’s existing home office, which is spread out across some 21 buildings, including repurposed warehouses, in Bentonville and the surrounding area. It will offer such amenities as expanded food offerings, fitness options, a child care facility, bike trails, and a park.
The sprawling campus will house more than 14,000 employees, with flexibility for more as new jobs are added. Featuring a flexible open floor plan that encourages collaboration, lots of natural light and an array of employee-friendly benefits, Walmart’s new headquarters reflects the chain’s evolution to a digital powerhouse
The buildings will be in keeping with Walmart’s sustainability focus. The eco-friendly features will include solar panels atop parking decks, energy-efficient lighting, and HVAC systems. Regionally-sourced building materials will be used, including mass timber construction.
[Read More: Walmart gives first look at its new digs]
In an official statement when Walmart first announced plans for the new headquarters, Dan Bartlett, executive VP, corporate affairs, Walmart, noted that Walmart is “people-led and tech-empowered.”
“For that statement to continue to guide us, we need a modern, connected campus,” he said. “We expect this will accelerate Walmart’s digital transformation and help attract the next generation of talent with state-of-the-art technology and contemporary conveniences.”