Jack Henry moves to $8.8M campus

Jack Henry & Associates Inc. employees are settling in to the company’s new Springfield digs.

The Monett-based company moved employees into new buildings at Battlefield and Blackman Roads in early July, said Debbie Wood, general manager of marketing and industry research.

“Our primary objective was to consolidate under one roof the 250 to 300 employees we had scattered through (five) offices in Springfield,” CEO Jack Prim said.

That “one roof” is a single campus comprising two buildings and about 160,000 square feet at 3725 E. Battlefield Road. The estimated cost for the two buildings was $8.8 million, financed by the company’s cash flow, according to previous Springfield Business Journal coverage.

“Most of these employees already live and work in Springfield, but there will be a few here who previously commuted to Monett,” said Scott Whisman, general manager of corporate services, via e-mail.

The buildings can accommodate more than 650 employees, and the campus affords room to grow.

“As for future expansion capabilities, we can add several more buildings on the property, and much of the site prep for the next building has already been completed as part of this initial project,” Whisman added in the e-mail.

The Springfield site is one of 50 locations nationwide for Jack Henry, which develops software and related products and services for the financial industry, Prim said. A wide array of the company’s offerings are affected by Springfield employees.

“Installation groups, customer service representatives, development staff, sales personnel, human resources reps, and corporate infrastructure teams all work from this location,” Whisman added.

Time to own
Jack Henry has leased office space in Springfield for longer than a decade. As time passed, it became more feasible to build its own campus rather than continue to lease multiple sites. Most of Jack Henry’s leased space is owned by Jon Risdal of Risdal Enterprises, he said.

“As the Springfield employee population expanded, we continued to increase the amount of space under lease,” Whisman said. “There are a number of variables that impact the decision, but at a certain point, it simply becomes more economical to own your own facility.”

The new campus will not affect operations in Monett, where 1,200 employees work at Jack Henry’s corporate headquarters, Prim said.

“We do a pretty good job of operating out of Monett,” he said.

The Monett campus, however, did have an impact on the design of Jack Henry’s Springfield home. The Monett campus also features large buildings, and the property is surrounded by woods and a lake, culminating in a university-like feel that is meant to be warm and welcoming.

Because company leaders wanted the Springfield campus to be an extension of corporate headquarters, Whisman said building and landscape designs were similar to the company’s traditional look and feel as established by founders Jack Henry and Jerry Hall.

Springfield-based Casey Architecture designed the new buildings. Another local company, Great River Engineering of Springfield Inc., handled the civil engineering, while Kansas City-based Bob D. Campbell & Co. was the structural engineer and Overland Park, Kan.-based Larson Binkley Inc. was the mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineer.  

Kansas City-based J.E. Dunn Construction Co. was the general contractor for the construction, managing the larger trades on the campus build, Whisman said, with Jack Henry’s own facilities team taking direct responsibility for the remainder.

“The result has been two beautiful buildings, built on-time, and on-budget,” Whisman added.

Growing season
While the move to the new campus consolidates Jack Henry’s Springfield presence, the company has been busy this year broadening its reach.

In June, the company closed on its $300 million acquisition of iPay Technologies LLC, its largest acquisition to date, according to previous SBJ coverage. iPay, based in Elizabethtown, Ky., is an electronic bill pay provider that serves more than 3,600 banks and credit unions and is now a wholly owned Jack Henry subsidiary.

That transaction followed the Oct. 1 closing on Jack Henry’s acquisition of Georgia-based Goldleaf Financial Solutions Inc., a data processing and check imaging provider. Jack Henry purchased an estimated $19 million in Goldleaf stock and absorbed company debt for a total value of about $60 million.

Later that same month, Jack Henry announced its intent to purchase Washington-based Pemco Technologies for a similar price, according to previous reports. CEO Prim has estimated that the Goldleaf and Pemco acquisitions would add $100 million in revenue for Jack Henry.

Shares of publicly traded Jack Henry (Nasdaq: JKHY) closed at $25.06 on July 13, compared to a 52-week range of $24.88 to $25.14.[[In-content Ad]]