Building the Sprint Corporate Headquarters is expected to save the telecommunications company $40 million versus leasing existing office buildings over 30 years. By consolidating more than 60 locations in Kansas City, the new world headquarters allows Sprint to save money by lowering overhead costs, minimizing the need to lease office space, and reducing employees' lost-time costs due to travel.

The headquarters is designed to achieve a more cohesive and fluid environment where employees and business units can interact and share ideas. It furthers the company's "One Sprint" philosophy by enhancing productivity across all business units by facilitating more frequent face-to-face interaction, less travel time, and greater synergy among departments. An innovative VIP (visual in process) system was designed to assist the moves to the Sprint Campus making them more efficient and less arduous.

To enhance productivity, Sprint workspaces will feature the latest telecommunications and computing infrastructure. Each workspace will employ the latest in functional office furniture and has been designed with employee needs and functions in mind. Each workspace also has access to Sprint ION (Integrated On-Demand Network), an integrated communication system that provides cost-effective, integrated local and long distance voice services, multiple phone lines, advanced calling features, and high-speed Internet access.

Common areas are centrally located to workspaces to facility teamwork. Each floor houses an interaction area for mail distribution, large photocopiers, and breakrooms. Conference rooms are available in four sizes and all contain tackable surfaces, a whiteboard, clocks, telephones, and dataports. The campus will eventually have four conference centers with 482 meeting spaces equipped with a variety of communication options.

A mix of high-tech, hands-on equipment will allow visitors to navigate independently when visiting Sprint. Instead of a gate or guard station, visitors will use a kiosk with a touch-screen detailing directions to the closest parking garage and the building in which they can find the person they're visiting. There also is a courtesy booth for visitors needing additional assistance. Once inside a building, touch screens with phones will enable the visitor to contact their host for an escort to their meeting place.

To enhance employee and visitor safety, security personnel will monitor the entire campus 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week from the 3,800-sf security command center. While the majority of the monitoring will be done by security personnel roving the Sprint Campus around the clock, video monitoring is another key aspect to the new security system. Cameras linked to closed circuit televisions are placed throughout all of the buildings, parking garages, and around the Sprint Campus.

The Campus buildings are situated to offer pleasant, efficient, and comfortable walking distances for the employees. No vehicular traffic is allowed inside the main loop road around the campus. However, Sprint does offer employees the use of the "Sprint Trolley" for easy access around the 200-acre campus.

The Campus also houses the Central Services and Central Plant facilities. The Central Services building contains a post office, imaging center, woodworking shop, plumber's shop, paint shop, electrical shop, and hardware store. The Central Plant houses two emergency generators with a third one to be added soon.

The Sprint headquarters features a variety of amenities such as an airport shuttle service, a satellite Johnson County Library, a post office, and ATM service. The Sprint "Town Center," a pedestrian area that includes a dry cleaner, a convenience store, and healthful and traditional food services, opened in August. A 3,000-seat amphitheater, a 350-seat auditorium, a reception courtyard, and a glass-enclosed "winter garden," with a reception area to accommodate seating for 600 are also part of the campus.

Sixty percent of the Sprint Campus' 200 acres will be devoted to green space, which include natural prairie grasses, flowers native to Kansas, 6,000 trees, 40,000 flowering bulbs, four fountains, two waterfalls, two lakes, and a wetlands area.

Sprint took a unique approach to the incorporation of 7.2 acres of wetlands on the site. Incorporation of the wetlands area, which is adjacent to the headquarters entry drive, is in strict compliance with the Army Corps of Engineers and U.S. Wildlife Service requirements.

The wetlands will have more than five acres of ponds, which will serve as catchbasins for storm-water runoff, and as an irrigation source for landscaped areas. Employees can also enjoy walking paths and benches surrounding the wetlands. A 1/8-mile jogging trail will be constructed on elevated ground on the east side of the wetlands and a childcare center will be constructed on the west side.

The company continues to move forward in their quest to earn "Energy Star(R)" designation on all their buildings. Some of the elements that Sprint has used to meet the EPA established guidelines include "green light" lighting systems, which offer a range of intensities and can be adjusted according to need. Electrical devices, fan systems, and the heating and cooling systems are also designed to reduce energy consumption.