PHOTOS: Caterpillar unveils new 3-tower HQ campus spanning 6 city blocks in Peoria

Updated Feb 27, 2015

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Caterpillar will make major, but very welcome, changes to the Peoria skyline with the construction of a three-tower company headquarters building along the city’s riverfront.

RELATED: PHOTOS: Tour the Caterpillar Visitors Center, a walk through the history of yellow iron

The plans are the result of a multiyear study with the aim of creating a more modern headquarters for the company, which has occupied the same downtown Peoria high-rise since 1967. In that time, the company’s sales and revenues have grown from $1.5 billion to $55 billion in 2014.

Cat signed on with Gensler Architecture, Design & Planning and Farnsworth Group for the design of the new complex. Chicago-based Turner Corporation will handle construction. The company did not detail how much the new campus will cost. Construction will not begin this year but will be a multi-year, multi-phase project.

Each of the HQ’s three towers will be eight stories and the new 31-acre Cat campus will occupy six city blocks and is designed to accommodate 3,200 employees. Those employees will have a lot to look forward to in the way of amenities like outdoor work spaces, fitness spaces and childcare services.

Peoria residents will benefit from the new campus, too, with green space and walking/biking paths integrated into the campus along with food and retail options.

The campus’ three towers will be connected by a three-story office building with an exterior design wrapped in a yellow-iron-like facade that Cat says invokes the high drive design of its D11 dozer.

The campus will also feature an energy center that utilizes Cat’s own products to support the campus’ electrical heating and cooling demands along with a display of historic Cat equipment across the street from the company’s visitors center.