I couldn't find a thread about the Dell campus so I'm just posting it here. Does anyone know what's going on at the Dell campus? There's a variety of construction related equipment at the Dell campus. Are they getting ready for an expansion?

I had sent a text to Pete about this back in February and he said they had some sort of slab problem and that their construction permit to fix it was $4.5M.

I recall that building having structural issued barely a few months after it was completed.

The ground the campus is built on is slowly sinking because it's where the river use to go through. When they were doing excavation work they tried to compact it the best they could by dropping large weights from cranes.It wasnt enough though, the foundation is still sinking.

They should turn this sinking land into a river park and move to new digs on solid footing in the Innovation District.

They should turn this sinking land into a river park and move to new digs on solid footing in the Innovation District.

I would like Dell to move closer to the CBD, it would help set up the innovation district with another tech company to push the density of our tech sector.

Yeah, the foundation is being fixed. Initially they had hoped to just prop it up, but apparently they're having to completely re-do it. While this is going on, they also decided to do some renovations and add some additional amenities. They're doing just the one building for now since they had to take everyone off of the first floor to work on it. Once this is done they'll also need to do the other building, so there will be work going on there for quite a while.

The ground the campus is built on is slowly sinking because it's where the river use to go through. When they were doing excavation work they tried to compact it the best they could by dropping large weights from cranes.It wasnt enough though, the foundation is still sinking.

It wasn't river land, it was trash land fill. The compacting was to settle the dirt, which obviously didn't work all that well. From people that have worked there, it's been an issue since they moved in and they've been working on it since they moved in.

Good news/bad news for them is that they've never filled the place. Some floors are for contracts like DoD type work and others are basically empty. So they have room to move people around while they do work. But fat chance we'll ever see that 3rd building they were supposed to build.

I would like Dell to move closer to the CBD, it would help set up the innovation district with another tech company to push the density of our tech sector.

They built in that area because it was an economic improvement area where they got tax credits for building there as long as they hire a certain percentage of employees from that area. They may lose their tax benefits if they relocate.

^

Yep.

It's basically a TIF district that helped fund their complex.


It's funny... I absolutely never hear about Dell these days. I wonder how many they employ here?

I don't know specific numbers but its quite a few. Dell OKC is a primary tech support site comprising of a significant portion of enterprise (server, storage, networking) and client (desktops, laptops) tech support including support and leadership staff for each, plus a sizable chunk of sales people. There's administration, IT, etc. If you buy a Dell laptop device and keep the standard warranty that comes with it, if you call into tech support you'll be speaking to someone from India. But if you get the nicer warranty and call into tech support, you'll be talking with someone either here in OKC or in Round Rock, Texas.

They've been doing a lot of renovations to building over the past year and a half or so. They had to do some foundation repair and in the process thought why not upgrade the bottom floor. Everyone's been WFH during COVID, though, so the site itself is quiet except for that construction work.

^

Yep.

It's basically a TIF district that helped fund their complex.


It's funny... I absolutely never hear about Dell these days. I wonder how many they employ here?

Still some of the best rated and selling computers, but, yeah, seems like I don't hear anything about them either. "It is the world's 3rd largest personal computer vendor by unit sales as of January 2021, following Lenovo and HP Inc." From wiki.
From what I understand their higher end pc's are made here in the states...I think that's cool.

I don't know specific numbers but its quite a few. Dell OKC is a primary tech support site comprising of a significant portion of enterprise (server, storage, networking) and client (desktops, laptops) tech support including support and leadership staff for each, plus a sizable chunk of sales people. There's administration, IT, etc. If you buy a Dell laptop device and keep the standard warranty that comes with it, if you call into tech support you'll be speaking to someone from India. But if you get the nicer warranty and call into tech support, you'll be talking with someone either here in OKC or in Round Rock, Texas.

They've been doing a lot of renovations to building over the past year and a half or so. They had to do some foundation repair and in the process thought why not upgrade the bottom floor. Everyone's been WFH during COVID, though, so the site itself is quiet except for that construction work.

I work there in Enterprise for server support and I would say before the pandemic, they were hiring full blast. The parking lot was as full as I had ever seen it.

Also, I can confirm it is foundation repair and general renovation to the facilities. They've been able to speed a bunch of it up since they've sent us home.

Is Dell using this campus anymore?

I went by the other day and there was literally zero cars in the lot at 9am on a Wednesday. I also notice there is zero job listings for them in OKC.

https://www.techradar.com/news/dell-goes-back-on-wfh-pledge-forces-employees-to-come-back-to-the-office

The site is not ready for people to return en masse yet, though, so its going to be a few months. One of the building's first floors, for example, is gutted. There is also a hiring freeze (following layoffs a couple of months ago).

We found that there are more synergies and productivity when people are in the office. We have a lot more people coming to the office now vs 1 year ago.

What do you do?

We developed a hybrid schedule so our employees rotate 3 to 2 time a week in the office.

Ah, sorry, I meant like what's your business?

Dell (at least the OKC office) is mostly a call center for tech support and sales. There was not a drop in productivity or any other measurable metric with WFH, so I don't anticipate there will be an increase by forcing anyone back. But there are other lines of work that I could see benefiting from more in person interaction, so I was just curious what yours was.

I work for DHS, the child support division. We had different departments, a call center, employer services center, and a case initiation office. We were all housed in different office spaces across Oklahoma City before COVID.

After COVID, they consolidated everyone in one big office in Norman. We all are required to come into the office at least once a month. New employees are required to work onsite for at least 4-6 months before being considered to work from home. Our model is more that work from home is a privilege. You have to earn it, and it has to be approved. After which you have the option to work from home full time or do a hybrid.

Also, new trainees for positions are required to do an onsite 8 week training. Effective training is hard to do over Zoom.

Most people are doing hybrid.