By the end of the year, Acuity will have completed a massive expansion project that will give the property and casualty insurance company more than 1 million square feet of office space at its Sheboygan headquarters.
The $170 million project will more than double the size of the company’s 450,000-square-foot headquarters building and is significantly larger than the originally-planned 260,000-square-foot expansion project that was first announced in 2013.
Once complete, Acuity’s headquarters will be about as large as Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co.’s $450 million, 1.1-million-square-foot office tower that is under construction in downtown Milwaukee.
When the project is finished, Acuity’s headquarters and parking structures will encompass about 30 of the 100 acres the company owns along I-43 in Sheboygan.
“The scope (of the expansion project) has increased based on our growth,” said Ben Salzmann, Acuity president and chief executive officer. “Our focus has been on the policy holder, which has created more goodwill and in turn, more references. We have earned this growth by being respectful to every one of our policy holders and the good word is spreading.”
Acuity operates in 24 states and has self-reported annual revenue of more than $1.2 billion. The company manages more than $3.5 billion in assets.
The insurer has begun selling insurance in 15 new states over the past 13 years. Acuity is planning to spread into another nine states over the next seven years, including Texas, New York, California and Virginia. This growth has prompted 700 new hires over the past five years, bringing its total employment to 1,250.
The new office space includes a training complex, a 2,000-seat theater in the round and a 1,280-space parking structure, said Sheri Murphy, the company’s vice president of services and administration.
The Acuity headquarters is also home to the world’s largest free-flying American flag. In November, the company increased the size of its American flag by 36 percent. The now 140-foot by 70-foot flag is supported by a 400-foot flagpole.
Within the next seven years, Acuity would like to build a 10-story office tower at its headquarters. Seven years after that tower is completed, a second 10-story office tower will be built, Salzmann said.
The expansion project demonstrates that Acuity is deepening its roots in Sheboygan and Wisconsin.
“A few years ago, the state of Illinois offered us incredible deals to leave this state. We didn’t go,” Salzmann said. “This is a huge commitment to the state of Wisconsin.”
For its part, the state has also invested heavily in Acuity. The company received at least $7 million in incentives from the Wisconsin Department of Commerce toward its various expansions from 2000 through 2006. The Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. formed in 2011 as the successor to the Department of Commerce and there is no additional information after 2007.
Acuity is a mutual insurance company owned by its members. Currently, the insurer has 300,000 policy holders.
“We grow 250 percent faster than the typical insurance company because we aren’t beholden to shareholders and we don’t set artificial goals,” Salzmann said. “The goal is consistency. Ironically, because we are so consistent, we are growing faster than the industry.”
