Jack Henry to consolidate Springfield operations through building sale

A “for sale” sign at the Springfield campus of Jack Henry & Associates Inc. (Nasdaq: JKHY) may soon be replaced with one that says “sold.”

John Langland, Jack Henry’s Texas-based senior managing director over enterprise procurement and facilities, said the building at 3737 E. Battlefield Road is under contract with a letter of intent, and a purchase and sale agreement is scheduled with the potential buyer today. He would not disclose the name of the buyer.

According to Matt Wagner, corporate communications senior specialist for Jack Henry, the company is streamlining its physical operations. What’s for sale is Building 2, the northern of two buildings on the Springfield campus, built in 2010 and sized at 77,000 square feet. Building 1, at 86,000 square feet and renovated in 2024, will remain in operation for Jack Henry. The company intends to retain ownership of the grounds surrounding the buildings on the 36-acre campus.

“The long and short of it is that we’ve consolidated our operations there into a single building and are selling the building to the north,” Wagner said.

Langland said the company has never published a list price for the building, but the market rate runs between $10 million and $11 million. He added that operational costs for a building of that size – including operations expenses, utilities and depreciation – can cost close to $1 million annually.

“That’s not insignificant,” Langland said.

Houston, Texas-based Transwestern Real Estate Services was a broker in the deal, Langland said. R.B. Murray Co. is handling the sale locally.

Hybrid trend brings changes

Jack Henry, which is based in Monett, builds financial technology solutions for banks and credit unions. Langland said the company is making the move in part because a hybrid workforce allows for streamlining.

“We’re doing it across our portfolio – looking at the needs of our employee base and looking at how we can service them,” he said. “We want to support how our employees work the best while being good financial stewards.”

It’s a trend that began before the COVID-19 pandemic, Langland said, when the company was already 20%-30% remote.

“Post-COVID, that number grew exponentially,” he said. “We morphed into a hybrid working model, with employees coming into the office based off their roles and needs and with others working remote.”

COVID-period hires – marked by large competition for workforce members, according to Langland – had a remote posture, he said.

“We hired in locations where we didn’t have offices,” he said.

The focus since then has been on creating a seamless environment by productively leveraging technology, Langland said.

The company has roughly 7,000 employees total, with about 1,900 in southwest Missouri, including Springfield and Monett.

“There’s a large local population that makes up a huge part of our workforce still,” he said. “Our workforce in southwest Missouri is very stable.”

Langland said the company’s target is to bring people in at least one day a month. Some groups come in one day a week, and some, like him, are in the office almost every day. In-person activities are scheduled throughout the year, he said, with executive road shows that bring C-level representatives to campus and large gatherings of 300-plus, depending on location, coming to hear about strategy, learn about new directions or celebrate wins.

“We’re doing a lot of different things to ensure constant engagement, whether people are in the office or remote,” he said.

Before COVID, he said, the Monett campus, with eight buildings, had up to 1,200 people on campus each day, and the Springfield campus had 400-plus.

Modernization efforts have focused on collaboration and innovation, he said.

“We created a lot of spaces for focused engagement,” he said.

Langland said the company has embraced a “heads up, heads down, heads together” methodology – with employees “heads up” during learning sessions, “heads down” while focused on their work and “heads together” while collaborating.

“We used to have old-fashioned, traditional cube environments,” he said.

The company still has cubicles available – high or low, take your pick.

“Different people like to work different ways,” Langland said.

There are also collaborative pods for groups of six to eight people, with desk space on the perimeter and a table in the middle where they can ideate together.

Buildings also include conventional and hoteling offices, drop-in spaces and private glass offices to take calls.

“There are different types of environments for different people to support their working needs,” he said.

Monett upgrade

Jack Henry just completed a major renovation of its central building, the 2004-constructed J7 building, on its Monett campus, with a ribbon-cutting June 15. That building is a focal point for the company, Langland said, as a place to bring associates, executive team members, customers and suppliers. It’s supported by a cafe and can host many different types of events, he said, with two large general meeting spaces and smaller conferencing spaces.

“It’s something to be able to serve Jack Henry and the community, now and far into the future,” he said.

Community use is on the table, he noted, and the company has discussed that possibility with the city of Monett.

“We don’t have a standard or policy for that, so we’re looking at how we create that,” he said.

Although the Monett campus is also being consolidated and modernized to accommodate work practices, there are no plans to sell any buildings there, Langland said. A master plan for the Monett campus is now in the works.