Walmart Uses 3D-Printed Walls to Cut Store Construction Costs 15%

What Walmart is actually building with 3D printing

Walmart has quietly become the largest commercial user of 3D-printed construction in the United States. Over the past two years, the retail chain has completed five store expansions using walls printed by robots, not masons. The additions span Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, and Missouri. Each project adds an online pickup and delivery area to an existing supercenter.

The work is done by FMGI, a Georgia-based contractor, using printers made by Alquist. The machines extrude a concrete composite in layers, similar to a giant tube of toothpaste being squeezed upward. The result is a load-bearing wall that goes from digital model to standing structure in days, not weeks.

The numbers behind the partnership

FMGI president Darin Ross says the first Walmart job took 40 days. The second took one week. That kind of improvement curve matters when a retailer operates on tight timelines and thin margins.

According to the contractor, 3D-printed walls cost 15% less than conventional concrete masonry units and take 33% less time to complete. The Owens Cross Roads, Alabama expansion covered 5,000 square feet with 16-foot-high walls printed in 75 hours by a five-person crew.

Those figures are why Walmart is now negotiating a 50,000-square-foot grocery store that would be fully 3D-printed. If that deal closes, it would become the largest 3D-printed building in the world.

Why 3D construction printing works for retail

The appeal is straightforward. Fewer workers on site means lower labor costs and fewer scheduling conflicts. The concrete mix must stay hot and the printers cannot operate in high winds, but those constraints are manageable. Ross notes that the industry has done things the same way for decades. FMGI switched to 3D printing because the math was hard to ignore.

Alquist CEO Patrick Callahan frames the Walmart partnership as proof that 3D concrete printing is no longer a pilot project. The company has 30-plus projects in the pipeline through 2027. Icon, another construction-tech firm, has built 263 3D-printed structures across the U.S. and Mexico and is now discussing data-center builds.

The bigger shift

SpaceX has used 3D printing for buildings at its Texas campus. Competing retailers will likely watch Walmart's results closely. If the cost and speed advantages hold at scale, the question changes from whether 3D printing belongs on commercial job sites to how soon it becomes the default.