Lowe’s Picks Mooresville for Headquarters Over Much Larger Cities
Chicago, Dallas and Atlanta’s loss has been Mooresville’s gain.
Longtime Wilkes County-based Lowe’s Home Improvement Warehouse has moved into its new headquarters in Mooresville. In recent years, the company underwent an exhaustive headquarters location search that resulted in solid interest from Dallas, Chicago, Atlanta, Columbus, Ohio, and Raleigh, N.C.
And, of course, the city of Mooresville.
Mooresville emerged the winner, and Lowe’s constructed a spacious campus that was completed in 2008. One of the key reasons Mooresville was chosen is its proximity to the large city of Charlotte and Mooresville’s availability of trained potential employees.
“We needed access to a talented workforce that would be able to support the company as we grow well into the future,” says Chris Ahearn, vice president of public relations for Lowe’s Cos.
The Mooresville campus is high-tech; it includes a “planogram” facility that helps the company with design and inventory.
“They evaluate products there – the way they would look in a store,” Ahearn says.
For example, light bulb merchants might set up their products in the planogram exactly as they would want them to look in a Lowe’s store. Once displayed, Lowe’s decision-makers can then determine if there are enough or too many light bulbs being showcased.
If there are too many or they are questionably displayed, the light bulbs might even be replaced with another product. The Lowe’s retail store in Mooresville also often serves as a testing ground for new products.
Entering 2010, the Lowe’s corporate campus in Mooresville can accommodate up to 12,000 employees. It oversees 1,400 stores in 49 states, and the company has recently expanded into international markets.
Lowe’s opened its first stores outside of the United States in 2007 by venturing into Canada and introducing seven stores in the greater Toronto area. It also arrived in Mexico in 2009 with a store in Monterrey.
