Wichita nonprofit buys massive new Texas campus with plans to hire up to 200 workers

Three years after acquiring the Dallas Lighthouse for the Blind, Envision has purchased a massive new campus for the renamed Envision Dallas.

Operations that have been spread over three buildings in the Dallas and Richardson, Texas, areas will consolidate into one 210,000-square-foot former AT&T building at 1801 Valley View Lane in Farmers Branch, near Carrollton in the greater Dallas area.

Wichita-based Envision president and CEO Michael Monteferrante said it’s all about “efficiency, effectiveness and presence.”

“We are expanding with new business partners, we are expanding with new donors, and we’re expanding with more people,” he said. “It’s just obviously much more effective and efficient when you’re under one roof.”

Monteferrante said it’s a challenge to explain to people what all Envision does when they have to visit three separate buildings.

“Now we can do it all under one roof where people can understand what our overall mission is.”

It’s a multifaceted mission that already employs about 200 in that area. Monteferrante said he expects to need up to an additional 200 workers over the next two years.

The three main operations are a call center, a manufacturing facility and a warehouse.

Monteferrante said consolidation will change operations measurably.

For instance, since the warehouse and manufacturing will be connected, logistics will change.

The Texas manufacturing operation has a number of product lines.

It’s a large producer of markers and highlighters, most of which go to the government. There’s also a significant textile operation with workers sewing for commercial partners as well as the U.S. military. Workers also make eyeglass cases for the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard, paper and vinyl award binders for private businesses and the government and reflective vests for highway workers.

Eighty percent of the manufacturing workforce is blind or visually impaired.

The warehouse operation supports the manufacturing and also has a fulfillment center within it.

All of the employees at the fulfillment center are blind or visually impaired. They ship water, jams, jellies, peanut butter, hazelnut spread, tuna and mackerel to the prison system in Texas.

In total, 50% of the warehouse workers are blind or visually impaired.

At the call center, also known as a contact or service center, employees handle calls for places such as the Better Business Bureau and the CDC.

“It’s just a growing business enterprise,” Monteferrante said.

The center is a hybrid of workers who are blind, visually impaired and those who are what’s known as typically sighted. Monteferrante said it’s the segment of blind and vision-impaired workers that is growing.

Monteferrante said the Dallas operations need more workers because “that’s the need of the marketplace.”

Since purchasing Lighthouse, he said Envision has added operations in the call center and new product lines in manufacturing, and he said he expects that to continue.

“We have a pipeline of new commercial products and new government products that we’re planning on winning.”

Envision’s services group in Texas is growing as well. Monteferrante said that means the blind and visually impaired in North Texas will have more health services available to them. He said Envision already has added more rehabilitation services and a low-vision clinic and that Envision is planning on adding child development as well.

“There’s just a lot . . . of services we’re going to be adding and providing to North Texas that they haven’t had,” Monteferrante said.

“We’ve built out our services and clinic, and we simply have just run out of space, and we want to get under one roof.”

Envision counts more than 150,000 people who are blind or visually impaired in the North Texas area it serves.

“This will take care of 12 counties in North Texas,” Monteferrante said.

At one time, Envision owned all three of the Texas buildings it currently is in but has sold them all as it prepares to move to the new space it owns.

“We like to be committed, and we like to own our real estate,” Monteferrante said.

The move won’t happen until 2023, he said.

“It takes a lot of time to completely finish it out. This is not a facility that is ready for us today.”

He is confident it is the right home for the future of Envision Dallas, though.

“That is one beautiful building.”

This story was originally published February 15, 2022 at 4:47 AM.