Epic’s sixth campus in Verona is beginning to take shape, and the company is looking ahead at a potential seventh, the Wisconsin State Journal reports. Epic is Dane County’s largest private-sector employer.
The plans for the sixth campus include five office buildings with a capacity of about 300 employees each. Building began this summer. The campus layout could change based on company staffing needs.
South of the sixth campus, a future seventh campus could be in the works, drafted out as five buildings and a parking garage on planning documents submitted to the city.
Two current campuses — Wizarding and Storybook — are also in the process of constructing three-story office buildings, and Epic’s physical expansions coincide with the company’s headfirst dive into its research side with the rise of AI and the company’s partnership with Microsoft.
Epic’s exponential growth has had a substantial regional impact; the city of Verona benefits from the company’s investment, which brings jobs and workers to the area and grows its tax base. The company has currently developed around 510 acres on which it pays the city roughly $5.5 million, the Verona Area School District $12.3 million, and the county an additional $3.5 million.
The company plans to have around 13,300 employees by 2024, with 1,700 of those projected to be hired this year. Verona’s total population as of 2022 was just 14,521. The city and state officials are still working to contend with the congestion that comes with the thousands of workers descending on Epic daily.
Company growth will necessitate more land and new roads that will inevitably change the area’s landscape — a prospect that is growing increasingly controversial.
