Firms say schools, quality of life help with recruitment

BENTONVILLE — The quality of the region’s schools and the quality of life in Northwest Arkansas helps to recruit and move talent to expanding company headquarters here, the Northwest Arkansas Council was told Tuesday.

Both Cindi Marsiglio, vice president for corporate real estate for Walmart, and Jane Duke, vice president and associate general counsel for Tyson Foods, praised local schools, both public and private.

Marsiglio oversees construction of the Walmart headquarters campus in downtown Bentonville. Duke is helping Tyson to concentrate its management in Springdale. Tyson announced plans in October to consolidate management in Springdale, bringing 1,000 jobs from other offices in Chicago and from Dakota Dunes, S.D.

Marsiglio and Duke joined a panel including: Todd Simmons, chief executive of Simmons Foods of Siloam Springs; Nick Hobbs, chief operating officer of J.B. Hunt Transport Services of Lowell; and Carter Malloy, chief executive of AcreTrader of Fayetteville. Panel members made their remarks at the winter meeting of the Northwest Arkansas Council, a nonprofit group of the region’s community and business leaders.

The council held its meeting at the Ledger building in downtown Bentonville. Organizers said the site was selected in part for its views of downtown Bentonville and beyond. Construction of the Walmart campus was visible from the conference room on the sixth floor where the meeting was held.

“We are at peak nuisance in our community, but it will be over soon,” quipped Marsiglio, referring to construction covering almost nine city blocks to make the Walmart campus. The new headquarters is expected to open in January 2025, she said.

Much of Tuesday’s discussion concerned headquarters expansion in Bentonville and Springdale and, to a lesser extent, at Simmons and J.B. Hunt’s central offices. But the region as a whole benefits from the influx to those locations, said Rogers Mayor Greg Hines after Tuesday’s lunch meeting.

The Federal Reserve raised interest rates soon after Tyson announced its decision to move jobs to Springdale, prompting the company to offer mortgage rate assistance, Duke said.

“It made all the difference in the world” in convincing executives from Chicago and Dakota Dunes to move to Springdale, she said.

The housing market in Northwest Arkansas, particularly in Bentonville, is historically tight, according to both studies commissioned by the council and by industry figures.

A report on housing prices in Bentonville, compiled by a work group commissioned by the City Council and released Jan. 21, found any family with a median household income for that city would have trouble finding a house they could afford if they were able to afford one at all in today’s market.