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Bell’s new corporate campus starting to take shape
April 9, 2014 By Wings Magazine
April 9, 2014, Fort Woth, Tx. - Fort Worth-based Bell Helicopter has begun moving into its newly-completed $40 million headquarters building as key part of a larger consolidation that will bring 5,000 Dallas-Fort Worth employees — and ultimately its iconic helicopters — to its Hurst corporate campus.
The redevelopment of the 1950's-era corporate campus is part of a multiyear, $1.2 billion investment into research and development, buildings and business systems to help modernize the company and attract top talent.
By the time Bell
Helicopter moves its helicopter maintenance and flight school to the
Hurst campus from AllianceTexas by spring 2015, the company will reduce
its North Texas footprint by 38 percent, which will save the company $20
million each year, said Robert Hastings Jr., Bell Helicopter's senior vice president of communications and government affairs.
"That's the real driver for us, $20 million in savings each year," Hastings told the Dallas Business Journal."A 60-year-old building costs more to run and so the savings is primarily operational."
About 450 employees from Roanoke and AllianceTexas already have moved
into the new headquarters building. The remaining corporate employees
will move from the old headquarters building into the new facility in
small-group phases with the C-level suite making the last move into the
building in May.
Prior to today, Bell
Helicopter had three entities at AllianceTexas and after the helicopter
maintenance and flight school moves onto the campus next year, the
company no longer will have an AllianceTexas presence. One of Bell
Helicopter's former buildings was sold to Tarrant County Community
College, which plans to build an aerospace education program at
AllianceTexas.
BAE Systems, which recently was awarded Lockheed Martin's F-16 work, has begun moving into a building that once housed some of Bell Helicopter's operations at AllianceTexas. In December, BAE Systems planned to hire 300 employees to help with the newly awarded contract.
Dallas-based Merriman Architects Associates was the project architect for the Bell Helicopter's headquarters building. Bell Helicopter has applied for silver LEED certification.
With the energy efficient efforts, Hastings said the building is roughly 16 percent more efficient than a typical office building.
The building includes a 6,300-square-foot conference center, as well as
about 50 different types of conference and break-out rooms throughout
the facility, he said. Bell Helicopter has lowered the cubicle walls and incorporates collaborative spaces throughout the work spaces for group meetings.
In a year, Bell helicopters finally will fly back to Bell
Helicopter's headquarters, which now includes a heliport atop of the
new facility, which is very important to corporate employees, Hastings told me.
"We manufacture all the parts here, but they go somewhere else to be
built," he told me. "When the helicopters come back here, you'll see
every day helicopters take off and hear helicopters taking off and we
think that's really important. The employees will be better connected to
the helicopters they are helping to build."
