Best Buy HQ Gets 20,000-SF Day Care Center

RICHFIELD, MN-New Horizon Child Care will have a 20,000-sf on-site child care center at Best Buy Co.’s corporate campus under construction here, twice as big as the child care company’s average site. The new childcare center, which has room for more than 250 children, will be the Plymouth-based company’s flagship Minnesota location.

The center will employ more than 40 trained early childhood professionals, a full-service kitchen, and a mother’s room.

The center’s 2,000-sf indoor playroom will have an outdoor park feel to it including clouds painted on the ceiling. The center will also include four infant rooms, four toddler rooms, six preschool rooms, one kindergarten room, and one school age room. The outdoor play area will be about 10,000 sf.

Opus Corp., hired by Best Buy to build the new 1.5-million sf corporate campus in Richfield, broke ground in July. The site is just north of I-494 between 35W and Penn Avenue. The first of four corporate campus buildings is expected to be completein November, and employees will move to the new location in late 2002 and as the remaining buildings are completed in early 2003. The 42.5-acre site was chosen because it is more centrally located in the metropolitan area for employees and offers freewayaccess and more transit options.

The campus, which is planned for a maximum of 7,500 employees, will have a commons area containing the Best Buy University, New Horizon Child Care center, fitness center, transit stop, parking facilities, and employee cafeteria.