The Beginning
CEI is very proud of maintaining a 43-year partnership with one of the world’s largest and most innovative retail companies. CEI established its relationship with Walmart Stores, Inc. in 1980, with its first land surveying project in Dumas, Arkansas. Surveying for Walmart was followed by design work for a new store in Mountain Home, Arkansas, in 1982. Fast forward to today, we have completed over 950 new construction stores, more than 290 Sam’s Clubs, more than 50 Neighborhood Markets, and three distribution centers across 44 states, as well as the current Walmart Home office.
CEI has been a Walmart Civil Engineering Consultant (CEC) since the early 1980s, and even helped Walmart establish the CEC program. We worked directly with founder Sam Walton and as Walmart expanded rapidly, CEI’s commitment to the program allowed us to become one of the retailer’s main consultants.
Growth and Expansion
The Walmart new store program put CEI on the map, figuratively and literally. From our Bentonville office, we helped Walmart grow around the country, which led to the opening of multiple CEI satellite offices. Since the beginning, CEI has helped Walmart open more than 1,000 stores, including the first Hypermart USA store, a program for which CEI not only served as the original CEC but also helped Walmart roll out. At one point, Walmart used CEI exclusively to prepare all Real Estate Committee (REC) packages, whether or not CEI was the official CEC for the project. Today, CEI is filling a similar role for the Walmart backfill fueling station program. While the new store program has been a big part of our growth with the world’s #1 retailer, CEI has assisted on several other Walmart programs, including:
• AnyTown plans, details and notes
• Data centers
• Distribution centers
• Facilities management – home office campus
• Facilities management – pavement
• Fulfillment centers
• Online Grocery Pickup (OGP)
• Pavement evaluations/PCIs
• Realty construction/special projects
• Remodels
• Special projects
• SWPPP management
Over the years, Walmart has turned to CEI for help in starting many new programs, such as the Sam’s Club expansion work in which CEI was the only CEC selected for the program or the company’s Online Grocery Pickup (OGP) program. Our first OGP project, located in Bentonville, is the only stand-alone pickup facility, i.e., no attached or adjacent supercenter or neighborhood market store. This project was especially challenging, as there were no standards in place for such a facility, and CEI had to coordinate closely with Walmart personnel and other consultants to make the project come together quickly. Soon after the grocery pickup facility was underway, Walmart turned to CEI to help establish prototype plans for OGP facilities attached to stores as well as OGP concept plans for stores in Alabama, Arizona, and Colorado—states in which CEI did not have offices.