Fintech firm adding NW office
California-based Loanpal setting up branch in Bentonville
Loanpal, a financial technology company, plans to open an office in a former restaurant space in Bentonville’s 8th Street Market development, creating 100 new jobs.
Loanpal on Monday said it will hire locals for certain positions, such as customer operations and software engineering, as well as relocate workers to build the company’s presence in Bentonville.
Hayes Barnard, Loanpal’s founder, chairman and chief executive officer, said the company looked all over the country to expand its footprint and “fell in love with Bentonville.”
The region, home to Fortune 500 companies such as Walmart, Tyson Foods and J.B. Hunt, has a strong quality of people and “it was an area where we really wanted to innovate,” he said. The move will be Loanpal’s first step outside of California.
The expansion is part of a wave of technology companies migrating or establishing offices in the Midwest, where cost of living and other expenses are lower. More workers are reconsidering their job opportunities and where they want to live during the remote-work era ushered in by the coronavirus pandemic.
“We believe the coasts have been increasingly a tough place to do business,” said Graham Cobb, president and chief executive of the Greater Bentonville Area Chamber of Commerce. “If you look at Bentonville, it’s got a heck of a lot of opportunity.”
The city is the fifth fastestgrowing in the U.S., census data show, adding more than 10 people per day between 2018 and 2019.
Loanpal is a platform that allows customers to finance upgrades to their homes using its mobile app. The additions include solar panels,
smart thermostats and grass turf, among other “green” purchases, according to its website. Loanpal said it has handled $5.8 billion in loans for more than 175,000 home improvements since 2018.
The closing of The Holler, a Ropeswing Hospitality Group restaurant, was announced in a Facebook post in late December.
Barnard, a Missouri native, said Loanpal plans to grow out of the 8th Street Market location in a couple of years, but assured that the company is committed to Bentonville and Arkansas. The new office is scheduled to open in early March.
“I think it’s a fantastic use of space,” Cobb said when asked about Loanpal’s new location.
The layout of the space is unique for a restaurant. The Holler had a coffee bar, food options, abundant space for remote workers and a large indoor shuffleboard court as the centerpiece.
Martin Thoma, principal of Thoma Thoma marketing agency in Little Rock, said technology companies these days want to create not just an environment, but a whole feeling to attract and retain workers.
“What Loanpal is doing is dropping their worksite right in the heart of a place with those amenities baked in,” Thoma said, including easy access to restaurants, boutiques and a nearby art museum.
As the move-in date gets closer for Loanpal, 8th Street Market’s property manager has no plans to change the structural integrity of the space.
Crystal Rascoe, Blue Crane’s senior commercial property manager, said in an email Monday that the current space will be kept “fully intact as it is now” and “will be a great place for employees of the new tenant to work.”
Barnard said he will be respectful of the Holler. Other than some rewiring for faster internet, he said most of the space will stay the way it is today. There are no plans to remove the shuffleboard court.
“It will be very easy to convert back to the original space once we move out,” he said.