Walmart and Alquist to expand 3D printed retail spaces

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Walmart partnered with construction company Alquist 3D last year to build a nearly 8,000-square-foot addition to its store in Athens, Tennessee, for pickup and delivery services for online orders. It is the largest commercial 3D printed structure in the United States and, despite a rocky start, a key proof of concept for the technology’s commercial viability.

Alquist, based in Greeley, Colorado, just announced that it will now print more than a dozen new Walmart buildings, as well as buildings for other commercial retailers, in what is arguably the largest-scale commercial real estate deployment of the technology, which has been used primarily in residential construction until now.

As part of the agreement, Sika, one of the world’s largest building materials companies with a strong focus on sustainability, will provide materials to Alquist for all future 3D printing projects and licensees. This will streamline Alquist’s domestic pipeline, reduce material and freight costs, and accelerate the development of more sustainable blends for large-scale 3D printed construction, including commercial projects deployed with Walmart, according to Alquist.

“This collaboration positions Sika at the forefront of next-generation construction, opening new markets and creating long-term growth opportunities,” said Noah Callantine, concrete 3D printing engineer and field services specialist at Sika.

This is an obvious turning point in the construction of CRE, whose modernization is notoriously slow. The new technology began to expand in the residential construction market, but has been much slower in commercial construction, simply due to the size of the printers needed to create larger buildings.

Alquist, which designs and manufactures larger-scale printers, as well as develops the code and software needed to make them work, got its start in the residential sector. It is now partnering with a large equipment rental dealership and full-service general contractor to deploy the technology on a commercial scale nationwide. This helps reduce the high cost of materials, as well as labor, which must be both trained and local, according to Alquist.

“The way to lower prices [for] it’s all about getting volume, and as you get volume, you get attention from suppliers. They see that it’s important, and the more they make, the less cost they can reduce their supply chain,” said Patrick Callahan, CEO of Alquist.

Callahan’s background is in defense technology, not construction, and he has positioned Alquist as a technology company. He said he’s following company founder Zach Mannheimer’s mandate to find ways to build residential and commercial buildings and infrastructure faster, cheaper, better and greener.

He admitted that the first project in Athens took far too long, as they resolved issues managing materials and implementing technology to print their first commercial building.

“It was kind of a classic Silicon Valley failure job,” Callahan said. “We weren’t involved in the design process. They changed the permits. … The general contractor we were under met with us about a week before we started, and no one had ever done that before.”

The second project, a 5,000-square-foot Walmart collection center in Huntsville, Alabama, took just seven days to complete.

Although the projects require far fewer workers, they must be more highly skilled than typical construction trades. Alquist partners with trade schools for its curriculum, introducing robotics and eco-friendly materials. Callahan said this is more attractive to a construction job market that has been significantly reduced in recent years.

“You’re not necessarily throwing rocks at a scaffold, but you’re using robotics in a safe, clean environment,” Callahan said. “We’ve seen a lot of people who were once traditional construction people push back, they’re now leaning in.”

Icon Build, the largest residential 3D printing technology company, is also starting to move into commercial construction. It has completed a hotel project and is now in talks with potential business partners, particularly for the construction of data centers. Its upcoming Titan printer will be able to handle these larger-scale projects.

“I think once this gets out into the world, showing what it can do, verifying the cost estimates that we do to customers, I think it will probably open a lot of people’s eyes,” said Jason Ballard, co-founder and CEO of Icon. “I think we should expect to see a lot of interest in alternative construction methods, data centers and other types of commercial things as well.”

But Ballard sees more headwinds than Callahan, particularly when it comes to work. He said data centers “already absorb a large portion of the market’s workforce.” He added that 3D printing for commercial buildings will face similar pressures as residential buildings to build more affordably and more quickly compared to conventional construction methods.

That said, Ballard said that next year Icon will make at least one of the new Titan printers every month, preparing for full-scale construction. These printers will be able to create most types of industrial commercial buildings, although they are not ready for high-rise buildings.

“If we do what I hope we can do next year and we show it, both on the revenue side, on the cost side and on the technology advancement side, I think we’ll grow over 300% next year, and we were already pretty busy this year,” Ballard said. “I think the world will start to say that maybe there are real opportunities to do better, beyond the pilot scale.”