Toyota recently opened its new North American headquarters in Plano, Texas, as part of the company's $10 billion investment in the United States over the next five years. The move is expected to add up to 4,000 jobs to north Texas by the end of 2017.
"The opening of our new headquarters in Plano is an extraordinary next step in Toyota's 60-year journey in the United States," said Jim Lentz, CEO of Toyota in North America. "With team members from four different companies together in one campus location, we believe this will inspire greater collaboration, innovation and faster decision-making as we turn to and lead the future of mobility, all with an eye on our customers."
Three years ago, Toyota announced its "One Toyota" initiative to create more unified operations in North America, in part by bringing together its quality engineering, sales, marketing, financial services and corporate functions in one location.
Since then, the company has invested nearly $1 billion on the project to build its new corporate campus on 100 acres in Plano and move thousands of team members and their families from California, Kentucky and beyond to north Texas.
In addition to the employees who chose to relocate, Toyota previously announced that it would hire more than 1,000 new team members from the rich mix of local talent and elsewhere. More than 90 percent of the company's new hires from the past year for positions in Plano have come from the north Texas market. Toyota has already filled more than 75 percent of its open positions.
Construction at the campus included the pouring of more than 142,500 yards of concrete, installation of more than 12 acres of glass and enough Texas limestone to equal the weight of 340 Texas-built Toyota Tundra 1794 Edition trucks. At its peak, there were approximately 2,000 workers onsite daily, putting in more than 5 million hours of work on the project.
With construction on the new headquarters nearly complete, occupancy began in late spring, and an average of a couple hundred team members per week are moving in, which is expected to continue in phases through December.
The new campus supports the company's One Toyota vision with spaces that intentionally create and foster a transparent environment, encourage the fun of discovery, and make Toyota a place where people want to come to collaborate and innovate. Among the seven buildings is a large central courtyard that serves as the symbolic heart of all social and business functions, including dining, fitness and conferencing facilities.
Additionally, Toyota has demonstrated its commitment to environmental sustainability by offering exterior landscaping that reflects the native habitat with drought-resistant plants, an 8.79-megawatt array of more than 20,000 solar panels, a commitment to use only renewable energy, and a rainwater harvesting system with up to 400,000 gallons to use in irrigation.
"Our new campus has fun, unexpected and even playful features that reflect our commitment to be a world-class leader in innovation with state-of-the-art facilities and cutting-edge technologies," said Doug Beebe, general manager of real estate and facilities for Toyota Motor North America. "It also is a great example of Toyota's commitment to environmental sustainability. We are proud of this campus because we have designed it to allow team members to get out of their office space and come together. And that's really the spirit of One Toyota."
For more information, visit www.toyota.com.
