JB Hunt’s Executive Leadership Team and MBL Architecture held a series of visioning and planning workshops beginning in 2021. The purpose of the master planning process was to establish growth patterns and organizing frameworks for the Lowell campus as JB Hunt’s workforce grows. MBL identified four key guideposts that aligned with JB Hunt’s hopes and needs for the future of the Lowell site: Leverage Existing Assets & Legacy; Focus on Immediate Priorities; Anticipate Future Needs and Sustainable Practices; and Adapt to Changing Conditions.
The workshops led MBL and JB Hunt to put together a larger team including Ground Control for landscape architecture, CEI for civil design, Olsson for traffic studies, Walker for parking design and phasing, Entegrity for sustainability strategies, and many other specialists and consultants. Together, the team produced over 400 pages of design documents and studies, outlining JB Hunt’s growth strategies on the Lowell site over the next two decades.

Designing for the Future

As the planning phase and the design phase of the various individual projects began to sync, many of the principles of the Master Plan informed the choices at the building level. The campus will become a model of sustainability for the region, with large investments in campus-wide mechanical and electrical strategies to that effect. All parking garages and office towers are designed to include massive solar arrays at the top. The power generated in the arrays will propel a large portion of the campus operations and – in the case of the forthcoming Tower I – will become a key part of the building design. Strategies such as the use of CLT and Heavy Timber for the structure of Tower I will further the sustainability goals and provide warm, expressive spaces for JB Hunt’s future workforce.