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World Wide Technology opens new headquarters with room to expand

World Wide Technology officials held a ribbon-cutting on Tuesday for the 208,000-square-foot building at Westport Plaza. Nov. 7m 2017
Maria Altman | St. Louis Public Radio
World Wide Technology officials held a ribbon-cutting on Tuesday for the 208,000-square-foot building at Westport Plaza.

World Wide Technology, a privately-held company, has opened its new headquarters in Maryland Heights.

And the seven-story building is filled with cutting-edge technology.

CEO Jim Kavanaugh points to a six-foot iPhone that sits in one of the briefing rooms.

“That’s actually a working iPhone,” he said. “So when we do application development work, we may build it and show it on that iPhone that’s literally the size of a person.”

Credit (Maria Altman, St. Louis Public Radio)
A 6-by-3 foot iPhone sits in one of the briefing rooms. The phone can be used to show clients applications World Wide Technology has developed.

The 208,000-square-foot building sits on a small lake in Westport Plaza. It’s LEED-certified and includes terraces designed to hold public events. The new building is the cornerstone of a $95 million revitalization effort at Westport Plaza.

While the building also includes lots of collaborative spaces for the 800 employees already working there (and room for another 400-500), it also provides opportunities for virtual collaboration.

“In this briefing room we can connect multiple briefing rooms around the world and have multiple screens going at the same time,” Kavanaugh said.

The company has about 4,000 employees globally, including about 2,000 in the St. Louis region. Kavanaugh said he expects that number to hit about 4,500 by the end of the year.

The company is expanding at its logistics center in Edwardsville as well as in Washington, D.C.

Kavanaugh said the next phase of building would occur at World Wide Technology’s former headquarters, just a few blocks away. It’s become the new technology campus, and Kavanaugh said eventually they expect to put in a multi-level building there, as well.

Follow Maria on Twitter: @radioaltman

Maria is the newscast, business and education editor for St. Louis Public Radio.