The campus is designed with one major open space surrounded by buildings to form a horseshoe. As one drives in, they pass a "central park" type space that transitions from the natural wetlands into the campus and includes two ponds with an adjoining stream. Further into the campus is a "town center," which is the hub of the campus. The buildings are situated similar to an "academic quad" and have the feel of a university quadrangle.

Phase One of the project includes eight office buildings, four assembly buildings, and four parking structures, totaling 1.5 million sf on approximately 200 acres. The buildings are divided into four clusters each consisting of two office buildings, one assembly building, and one parking structure. Each cluster also shares a central mechanical plant. The central plant not only offers Merrill Lynch economies and redundancies but also conserves energy. Additionally, these central plants are equipped with an ice manufacturing system that significantly reduces energy usage for air conditioning.

The telecommunications infrastructure provides complete fully diverse access to the multiple voice and data service providers necessary to support Merrill Lynch's significant current and future requirements. Two buildings on the new campus house the technology support facilities. The 8,000-sf Primary Campus Infrastructure Room is housed in Building One and accommodates expansion up to 11,000 sf. The 4,000-sf Secondary Campus Infrastructure Room is in Building Four. Both rooms are supported with a standard technology environment including a raised floor, 24/7 cooling system, a conditioned/uninterrupted power system, and generator back up. Buildings Two through Eight will each house smaller, 2,000-sf Building Technology Infrastructure Rooms containing cable entrance facilities, building Main Distribution Frames, LAN backbone routers and switching facilities, and other building specific technology infrastructure.

Each building contains lobbies with vaulted skylight ceilings, marble floors and carpeting, and break rooms at the center of every office floor. Conference rooms, located at the center of every office floor in each building, vary in size and can accommodate between eight to 50 people. Two rooms per building have been fully outfitted with audio-visual equipment and all other rooms contain the infrastructure to accommodate temporary audio-visual equipment. The Great Room, located in Assembly Building C, contains a 13'-high ceiling, complete audio-visual technology, and can accommodate up to 440 people for large gatherings or presentations.

Other amenities include a 300-child Family Care facility, Fitness Center, post office, dry cleaners, medical clinic, hair salon, fire station, athletic fields, exercise trails, and several indoor/outdoor cafeterias. Surrounding the campus and its loop road is a 1.5-mile jogging trail. South of the campus, the outdoor recreation area consists of two volleyball courts, four softball fields (one of which is lighted), a basketball court, and two tennis courts.

A five-acre water garden features two manmade ponds, a stream, and waterfall. The water in these ponds will be used for site irrigation and will be replenished from an on-site well. The waterfall is part of a recirculating system that will aerate the water. Adjoining these ponds are walking paths, sitting areas, a dining terrace, and a lawn amphitheater to be completed by summer 2001.

The Hopewell campus preserves and retains more than 150 acres of existing mature woodlands and wetlands areas as open space. Nearly 70 acres of wetlands will remain untouched. Approximately seven acres of additional manmade wetlands were created to be water quality basins. These basins serve to pre-filter out sediments, chemicals, and non-point source pollutants from storm water run off before it enters the online detention system.

Since portions of this area were historically farmed, the site consists of gently rolling hills and four small, intermittent streams that drain into Jacobs Creek.