In the months since March, the barren and unwelcoming exterior of what was once a Kmart store has been transformed.

Thursday, August 24, 2000

In the months since March, the barren and unwelcoming exterior of what was once a Kmart store has been transformed. "Old market design" brick has replaced faded siding, and beauty has replaced blight.

The name has changed, too. No longer "the old Kmart building," the now nearly 80,000-square-foot structure soon will be known only as Corporate Office South. According to V. Allan Krejci, vice president of public relations for Hormel Foods Corp., the company expects to begin moving employees into the Corporate Office South building in early October. It will be late December, however, before all employees scheduled to move into the facility actually are relocated.

"The purchase of the former Kmart building allows Hormel Foods to provide needed additional office space, as well as create more conference rooms for employees," Krejci said. "We estimate costs of the total Corporate Office South and the SPAM museum will approximate $15 million."

About 60,000 square feet of the newly renovated building will make up the additional corporate offices, while the new SPAM museum and the gift center will occupy another 18,000 square feet. Krejci estimated 160 people would be moved to the south offices, representing various departments, including engineering, consumer affairs, transportation, logistics, employee benefits, livestock accounting and data processing.

Work has been under way since demolition inside started Feb. 28 and the removal of the exterior began March 14. There have been no shortcuts in the project.

Larry Pfeil, vice president of engineering, said the interior of the facility basically was gutted. Heating, ventilation and air-conditioning units and ducts, boilers, ceiling grid systems and lights were removed. Much of the sprinkler system and mechanical piping also was removed.

The flooring was raised for the new facility, Krejci said, because of communication and wiring needs, as well as to facilitate the moving of employees and departments. Extensive landscaping also will be completed on the 4.7-acre site with a wide variety of trees, shrubs and plants.

The purchase and renovation of the building is good for the company, but also for the city of Austin. Not only will the tax rolls go up with the remodeling, but the city will capture nearly all of that increase because officials were able to include the once blighted area in its Tax Increment Finance District No. 10. The money captured from the new Corporate Office South and SPAM museum will go toward erasing other blight in the downtown area.

Krejci said the company had no comment on the city’s TIF projects since the state auditor’s office determined the Austin City Council was acting legally after an investigation earlier this year.