OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — ConAgra Foods has bought three of the buildings on is Omaha campus for roughly $75 million to give the company flexibility as it plans to move its headquarters to Chicago next year.
The Omaha World-Herald reports ConAgra now owns three of the five buildings on the downtown campus near the Missouri River. It has long-term leases on the others.
Owning more of the buildings should give the company more flexibility as it eliminates 1,500 office jobs and reduces the size of its Omaha operation.
ConAgra is also selling off most of its private-label operations to TreeHouse Foods Inc. for about $2.7 billion and preparing to spin off its frozen potato business into a separate company under the Lamb Weston brand.
It plans to focus on its brands, such as Orville Redenbacher, Healthy Choice, Chef Boyardee and Hebrew National, after it completes the changes. ConAgra spokesman Chris Kircher said the company is still evaluating how much space it will need in Omaha.
"While work is beginning to determine exactly what space we'll need and what our footprint on campus will look like, this is going to take a little more time before we'll be at a point where we have more details to share," Kircher said.
Local developers are already imagining possible projects that could be done with some of the ConAgra campus, but they're waiting for the company to finalize its plans.
"Until they know, we can't fill the void — we don't know what the void is," said Trenton Magid of World Group Commercial Real Estate, who also is on the Omaha Planning Board.
But already some real estate developers are discussing the possibilities of extending downtown streets into the ConAgra campus and building a mix of retail, residential and office buildings. That could help extend the successful Old Market district of renovated warehouses to the river.
Before ConAgra's current headquarters was built, the city tore down several blocks of historic brick warehouses in 1989. Nearly two dozen buildings were destroyed to make way for the development.