Read full article in Dallas Morning News…
Plano-based At Home is building a new corporate headquarters in Billingsley Co.’s Cypress Waters development on Belt Line Road north of LBJ Freeway to accommodate the home superstore’s growth plans.
The four-story office building is under construction at the southeast intersection of Cypress Waters Boulevard and Saintsbury Street next to Pena Park. It’s expected to be completed in December.
“We’ve outgrown our existing facility and wanted to create a modern work environment that allows us to expand and attract the best talent out there,” said Lee Bird, At Home’s chairman and CEO. At Home now has more than 230 stores in 40 states and has said it expects to grow to a 600-store chain.
At Home has 400 corporate employees, and the new building is big enough to accommodate a staff of 1,000 people over the next 10 years, the company said. The current headquarters at 1600 E. Plano Parkway has 136,000 square feet of office space and a 500,000-square-foot warehouse that At Home said it plans to keep.
Bird said the company selected Cypress Waters for its “central location and amazing amenities.”
The 260,000-square-foot headquarters will include a 78,000-square-foot design center with a mock store, photo and video studios, training rooms, collaboration and co-working spaces, and a coffee bar.
The new space, designed by architects GFF & Corgan, will have “a lot of energy to inspire creativity and working together,” Bird said. Billingsley is the developer, JLL is the broker and project manager, and StructureTone is the general contractor.
At Home is joining a growing list of companies moving to Billingsley Co.’s 1,000-acre mixed-use development on Belt Line Road north of LBJ Freeway. So far, about 3 million square feet of office space has been built, and Billingsley has an additional 300,000 square feet under construction. The development’s apartment and restaurant area called The Sound has a view of North Lake and walking trails.
More than 11,000 people work at Cypress Waters for companies including 7-Eleven, Zales Jewelers, CoreLogic, Nokia, Brinker International, Toyota Industries Commercial Finance, BT America and Constellation Brands.
At Home went private last summer, selling to private equity firm Hellman & Friedman five years after its initial public offering.
The retailer’s performance was strong in 2020 and early 2021, with sales up more than 20% as households upgraded their surroundings as the health crisis was new and people found themselves mostly at home. It had sales of $1.74 billion in 2020, its last full year as a public company.
At Home was still operating as Garden Ridge when it moved from Houston to Plano in 2014 and started to evolve into the At Home superstore concept. The retailer moved into what had been Mervyn’s regional office and warehouse, and its 81 stores in 21 states adopted a new blue-and-gray exterior with the name change.
Its first store inside the Dallas city limits will open soon in the former J.C. Penney space at Timber Creek Crossing on Skillman Street.
The home superstore said Wednesday that it has a new exclusive collection with Emmy award-winning TV host, designer and author Ty Pennington. The line features hundreds of items, from wall art, textiles, furniture and patio to kitchen and dining, rugs, lighting and home accents starting at $4.99.
