“This building is phenomenal; we are so happy to add it to what we can now call a campus. I think we officially now have a campus,” said President/CEO Joe Sheetz.

The Walter Business Park across the road is home to the Sheetz Distribution Center, Sheetz Bros. Kitchen and the Sheetz Shwellness Center.

The 114,830-square-foot facility houses more than 300 employees, encompasses the Sheetz store operations, store support, human resources, informational technology and store security departments.

Sheetz recently moved 340 employees from its Altoona corporate headquarters on Sixth Avenue to the new building.

The new Sheetz facility includes a large multistory atrium area which offers a relaxing gathering space for employees and visitors. View more photos of the new facility at cu.altoonamirror.com.

The nearly $40 million project had been in the planning stages for several years.

“We knew we eventually had to expand. Our employees were tired of working on top of each other. We knew it was time to do something,” Sheetz said.

The company wanted to do it right.

“We wanted a building that was modern and has longevity to it. I think we accomplished that here. We wanted something more collaborative and open,” Sheetz said. “The idea of what a workplace should look like has changed, you need a lot of energy and light, that is what the young people want and demand.”

Steve McKnight, president/CEO of Altoona-Blair County Development Corp., said sometimes economic development takes some luck.

Mirror photos by Gary M. Baranec Joe Sheetz welcomes guests and employees during a ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday morning at the new Sheetz Operations Support Center in Claysburg.

“We have been lucky the Sheetz family is here. This building marks another milestone for the Sheetz family. We say thank you to the Sheetz family for being here and staying here,” McKnight said.

Martin Marasco, former ABCD Corp. president/CEO, for whom the business park is named, said Thursday was an exciting day.

“This is just so exciting when you think where we started out here about 20 years ago with the distribution center. We are so fortunate we have such an outstanding family as the Sheetz group that made this commitment to the community, region and state. This is what economic development people dream about, you say a lot of prayers that something like this will happen in your lifetime,” Marasco said.

Sheetz joins Central States Manufacturing as tenants in the business park.

Completion of the operations center has led to the creation of about 10 jobs in the maintenance, security and culinary departments, Sheetz said.

The building contains 442 work spaces so there is room to grow.

“We only have about 340 people here. We have room for about 100 more people. It may take decades to get there, but we freed up space in the Altoona office,” Sheetz said.

The Altoona building remains Sheetz’ corporate headquarters with the executive offices, finance and accounting offices.

“We plan to renovate the interior of the Altoona building. We want to try and consolidate our gasoline operations in that building,” Sheetz said.

Sheetz officials also unveiled the company’s Little Sproutz Early Childhood Learning Center, a facility available to the children, grandchildren and legal dependents of Sheetz employees and collaboration with Bright Horizons.

The facility has room for 146 children with 42 enrolled.

“I am passionate about early learning. It is an investment in our future workforce. They will become employees of our community,” said Stephanie Doliveira, vice president of human resources.

Mirror Staff Writer Walt Frank is at 946-7467.