The Phoenix Business Journal is reporting that Illinios-based State Farm Insurance is planning to build a very large regional headquarters in Tempe, Ariz.
(M)ultiple sources … confirmed this but wanted to remain anonymous. These sources (said) that State Farm will build a roughly 1 million-square-foot regional headquarters campus on a site owned by Arizona State University in which Scottsdale-based Sunbelt Holdings Inc. has an option to buy. The facility would house about 5,000 to 7,000 employees, sources (said).
Notably, State Farm confirms to the Phoenix business newspaper that it is indeed “expanding our established presence in Atlanta, Dallas and Phoenix.” To my knowledge, that’s the first official explanation of real estate deals that have been getting attention.
In light of my reporting earlier this month about State Farm’s possible interest in downtown Tacoma, I asked regional spokesman Brad Hilliard to comment on the Arizona news and what it might mean for local jobs. I’m waiting to hear back from him.
I can’t help but notice that if you’re looking at State Farm’s operations on a national map, there’s a lot of territory to cover between Arizona, company headquarters in Illinois and the Pacific Northwest. Seems like expanding their established presence up here would make some sense.
I’ll post here with updates.
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