Construction company Alquist 3D worked with Walmart last year to build a nearly 8,000-square-foot 3D printed addition to its store in Athens, Tennessee.

Alquist

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Walmart partnered with construction company Alquist 3D last year to build an almost 8,000-square-foot addition to its store in Athens, Tennessee, for online order pickup and delivery services. It is the largest 3D-printed commercial structure in the U.S. and, despite a bumpy start, a key proof of concept for the technology’s commercial viability. 

Alquist, based in Greeley, Colorado, just announced it will now print more than a dozen new Walmart buildings, as well as buildings for other commercial retailers, in what is arguably the largest-scale commercial real estate deployment of this technology, which has mostly been used in residential construction so far. 

As part of that deal, Sika, one of the world’s largest construction materials companies, with a heavy focus on sustainability, will provide materials to Alquist for all future 3D-printed projects and licensees. This will streamline Alquist’s national pipeline, lower material and freight costs, and accelerate development of more sustainable mixes for large-scale 3D-printed construction — including the commercial projects rolling out with Walmart, according to Alquist.

“This collaboration positions Sika at the forefront of next-generation construction, opening new markets and creating long-term growth opportunities,” said Noah Callantine, 3D concrete printing engineer and field service specialist with Sika.

It is a clear turning point in CRE construction, which has been notoriously slow to modernize. The new technology has started to grow in the homebuilding market, but has been far slower in commercial construction, simply due to the size of the printers needed to create larger buildings.

Alquist, which designs and builds the larger-scale printers, as well as develops the code and software to operate them, started in the residential sector. It is now partnering with a large equipment rental dealer and a full-service general contractor to scale the technology commercially nationwide. Doing so helps to lower the high cost of materials, as well as the labor, which needs to be both trained and local, according to Alquist. 

“The way to bring prices down [for] anything is to get volume, and as you get volume, you get the attention of suppliers. They see that it matters, and the more that they make, the cheaper that they can bring their supply chain down,” said Patrick Callahan, CEO of Alquist.

Growing pains 

Construction company Alquist 3D worked with Walmart last year to build a nearly 8,000-square-foot 3D printed addition to its store in Athens, Tennessee.

Alquist

Callahan’s background is in defense technology, not construction, and he has positioned Alquist as a tech company. He said he follows the mandate of company founder Zach Mannheimer to find ways to build residential and commercial buildings and infrastructure faster, cheaper, better and greener. 

He admitted the first project in Athens took far too long, as they worked out the kinks in both managing the materials and implementing the technology to print their first commercial building. 

“It was a sort of classic Silicon Valley failing forward job,” Callahan said.  “We were not part of the design process. They changed permitting. … The general contractor that we fell under met us about a week before we started, and nobody had ever done this before.”

The second project, a 5,000-square-foot Walmart pickup center in Huntsville, Alabama, took just seven days to complete. 

3D labor 

While the projects take far fewer workers, they need to be more highly trained than typical construction trades. Alquist partners with trade schools for its curriculum, introducing robotics and green materials. Callahan said that has been more attractive to what has been a severely reduced construction labor market in recent years.

“You’re not necessarily throwing rocks around up on a scaffolding, but using robotics in a safe, clean environment,” Callahan said. “We’ve seen a lot of what used to be traditional construction folks that kind of pushed back, they’re now leaning in.”

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Growing competition

Icon Build, the largest residential 3D printing technology company, is also starting to dip its toes into commercial construction. It has completed a hotel project and is now in talks with potential commercial partners, including for construction of data centers. Its forthcoming Titan printer will be able to handle those larger-scale projects. 

“I think once that’s out in the world, showing what it can do, verifying the cost estimations that we’re making to customers, I think that’ll probably open a lot of people’s eyes,” said Jason Ballard, co-founder and CEO of Icon. “I think we should expect to see a lot of interest in alternative ways of construction, data centers and other kinds of commercial things as well.”

But Ballard sees more headwinds than Callahan, particularly when it comes to labor. He said data centers are already “sucking up a lot of the labor in the market.” He added that 3D printing for commercial buildings will have similar pressures as residential to build more affordably and more quickly relative to conventional construction methods. 

That said, Ballard said next year Icon will be manufacturing at least one of the new Titan printers each month, setting itself up to scale construction dramatically. Those printers will be able to create most types of industrial commercial buildings, although they are not ready for high rises. 

“If we do what I expect that we’re going to be able to do next year and show, both on the revenue side, the cost side, the technology advancement side — I think we’ll grow over 300% next year, and we were already pretty busy this year,” Ballard said. “I think the world’s going to start to say, perhaps there are real opportunities to do better, beyond the pilot scale.”

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A Waymo autonomous vehicle drives along Masonic Avenue on April 11, 2022 in San Francisco, California. 

Justin Sullivan | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Alphabet’s Waymo unit has received approval to expand its autonomous ride-hailing service to more parts of the San Francisco Bay Area, including San Jose.

In March, the company submitted a request to the California Public Utilities Commission to gain approval for its latest passenger safety plan, a key step in gaining permission to operate driverless vehicles across a broader area. On Monday, the proposed expansion was approved, allowing for Waymo’s driverless coverage to extend from San Francisco down through the Peninsula.

“We’re very excited to share that the CPUC has approved our application to operate our fully autonomous commercial ride-hailing service in the South Bay and nearly all of San Jose!” the company wrote in a post on X on Monday. “While this won’t change our operations in the near-term, we’re looking forward to bringing the benefits of Waymo One to more of the Bay Area in the future.”

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ELMHURST, NY — One of the newest additions to Queens Center is a store that many local mallgoers may not recognize.

Along with well-known mall staples like Macy’s, American Eagle and Bath & Body Works, the shopping center is now home to a Primark. The Ireland-based discount retailer, which sells clothing, shoes, purses and more, opened its doors there in December — and it has more U.S. stores on the way.

Across the country, a growing number of malls and shopping centers are getting a dose of international influence. Retailers including Primark, Spain-based Mango, Canadian retailer Aritzia and Japan-based Uniqlo are adding new stores across the U.S. — and pushing into regions where they haven’t gone before, outside of coastal cities like New York City or Los Angeles.

Primark store at the Queens Center mall in Elmhurst, NY. 

Melissa Repko | CNBC

Nearly 19,000 stores opened in the U.S. between 2018 and 2023 and about 28% of those were foreign-owned retailers, according to the most recent available figures from GlobalData, a market research firm.

And in the past few years, retailers based in Europe or elsewhere around the world have announced ambitious U.S. expansion plans.

Primark, which has 29 stores in the U.S., plans to reach 60 locations in the country by the end of next year. It has signed leases for new stores in diverse parts of the U.S., including El Paso, Texas; Memphis, Tennessee; Hyattsville, Maryland; and Miami, Florida.

The retailer, known as Penneys in Ireland, has become a household name in Ireland, the U.K. and other parts of Europe since its first store opened in Dublin in 1969. The U.S. market has become an important place to break new ground as the company hits a “maturity point” in some European countries, president of Primark U.S. Kevin Tulip said in an interview with CNBC.

“The U.S. is the number one consumer market,” he said. “So to be here and to get it right means a lot. But you really need to get it right.”

Why the U.S. is a retail expansion target

Primark isn’t the only one with big ambitions for the U.S.

Barcelona-based retailer Mango announced a $70 million expansion last fall, including plans for 42 new storefronts in the U.S. in 2024, 20 more locations this year and a new logistics center outside of Los Angeles. Those locations will be scattered in parts of the Sun Belt and Northeast, Mango CEO Toni Ruiz told CNBC in an interview. 

Vancouver-based Aritzia’s U.S. footprint is now nearly as large as its fleet of stores in its home country. Last year, the retailer opened 14 new stores, including three expansions or relocations, in North America. That brought its store count to 61 in the U.S., as it added boutiques in major cities like Chicago and Miami and smaller markets like Plano, Texas and Sacramento, California.

Shoppers wait in line to enter newly opened women’s clothing store Aritzia on Michigan Avenue on Black Friday on Nov. 29, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois.

Kamil Krzaczynski | Getty Images

And more stores are coming this year in cities including Scottsdale, Arizona and Murray, Utah, the company said.

The U.S. has many ingredients that brands from Europe and other parts of the world look for, said Monique Pollard, a London-based retail analyst for Citi. The U.S. has a fragmented market of apparel retailers, and its consumer spending has proven more resilient than in some other inflation-weary markets like the United Kingdom, she said.

Plus, fashion trends are going global more quickly as influencers on Instagram and TikTok and consumers’ own travel influences what they wear. That can make it easier for a new brand to break into an unfamiliar region, said John Mercer, head of global research for Coresight Research.

“There are fewer differences to kind of iron out between markets,” he said, adding that foreign brands now “stand a better chance” than in previous years or decades.

Social media has made it possible for brands with even a tiny footprint of physical stores to gain traction in the U.S. About 63% of consumers under 25 and 57% of those between 25 and 34 discover products or brands on social media at least weekly, according to a retail survey by research advisory group Forrester.

Shoppers walk into Uniqlo at the Westfield UTC shopping center on Jan. 31, 2025 in San Diego, California.

Kevin Carter | Getty Images

Viral trends have fueled sales for some of the international newcomers, through products like Aritzia’s Super Puff winter coat and Uniqlo’s shoulder bag. Both companies credited social media for driving popularity of those items two years ago.

Shrinking department stores and retail bankruptcies have left market share for foreign retailers to grab — and some empty stores in malls for them to fill. Macy’s is in the middle of closing about 150 of its namesake locations across the U.S. Many specialty baby stores have also shuttered due to bankruptcies, including Buy Buy Baby, which was owned by Bed Bath & Beyond, and Babies R Us.

Primark’s Tulip said children’s clothing has been one of company’s strong categories in the U.S., saying the company has noticed higher demand and less competition.

And some of its stores have replaced retailers like J.C. Penney that have shuttered some locations, or others such as Bed Bath & Beyond that have gone out of business.

Mango, Aritzia, Uniqlo and Zara are all in the early innings of U.S. growth, though, with less than 100 stores each across the country. That means that at least for now, the U.S. businesses account for just a small piece of many of those companies’ global business and a tiny fraction of the country’s apparel market.

The U.S. represents about 5% of global sales for Primark. Tulip said he expects that percentage to grow and already, that growth has begun to influence the retailer’s product range. One change is that it’s now making more leisurewear to suit American shoppers’ tastes, he said.

Mango flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York City.

Courtesy: Mango

The risks of expansion

Yet in any new market, success isn’t a guarantee — and relevance can fade.

Sweden-based H&M paved the way for other foreign retailers when it opened the doors of its first U.S. store about 25 years ago on New York City’s Fifth Avenue. Since then, the retailer has become a well-known mall name strongly associated with its fast fashion approach of quickly responding to trends and selling cheaper versions of hot items.

But more recently, the Swedish retailer’s sales have disappointed as it faces stiffer competition in the U.S. and abroad from low-priced Chinese online retailer Shein and Spanish rival Zara, which is owned by Inditex.

A shopper carries Foot Locker and Zara shopping bags while walking down the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, California, March 20, 2023.

Patrick T. Fallon | Afp | Getty Images

Uniqlo owner Fast Retailing has gained traction in the U.S. after earlier pushes into the country fell flat. The Japanese retailer reported losses of roughly $71.5 million in fiscal 2016 from retiring assets and shuttering stores in the U.S.

Now, the company is back in growth mode and has pledged to reach 200 stores in North America by 2027.

For Primark, the U.S. has come with a learning curve, too, Tulip said. The retailer broke into the U.S. market in 2015 by opening a store in Boston, a city with a large Irish population that would recognize its brand. Then, he said, it moved cautiously to try to understand the U.S. shopper before opening more locations in the Northeast and then heading further to Southern states.

At many of Primark’s store openings, enthusiastic shoppers have turned up early and waited in a line before doors swung open, he said.

Yet the Irish retailer has had missteps too, he said. Primark carries a lot of licensed merchandise, such as Disney and Marvel-themed clothing or jackets and T-shirts with the logos of popular NBA and NFL teams.

But when it expanded to the U.S., that sports merchandise didn’t land in the way it had hoped.

“Initially we thought, you know, surely everyone in Europe loves the Dallas Cowboys and, you know, let’s land that product into every [U.S.] store and everyone’s going to absolutely go wild for it,” he said. “But we saw pretty quickly that actually people are very passionate about their local sports team.”

He said Primark pivoted to carrying only relevant local sports teams, such as having Buffalo Bills items in upstate New York.

Primark also has a unique quirk that could become a weakness: It sells exclusively through brick-and-mortar stores. Its lack of an e-commerce business in the U.S. could make it vulnerable to retailers like Amazon, Walmart and Shein, especially since those sites sell many low-priced wardrobe staples.

More than 50% of Primark’s clothes are everyday basics, such as underwear, T-shirts and socks, according to the company’s website.

As the newcomers have tried to gain traction with American shoppers, some brands have taken a different tack. Zara’s net store count in the U.S. has stayed flat at just shy of 100 for the past five years. 

Instead of more locations, Zara’s parent company has added more room in its stores. In 2013, the average store size for Inditex’s retailers including Zara was around 6,000 square feet. That’s shot up to an average of about 8,600 square feet a decade later, according to a Citi analysis based on data from company filings.

While the growing international retailers have only a small footprint in the U.S., they have already proven influential, as they offer shoppers fresh choices and U.S. retailers new competition.

One of Primark’s next expansion moves show the company is not subtle about its ambitions: a store is set to open in New York City’s Herald Square. It will be a less than two-block walk from Macy’s iconic flagship store.

On a recent day at Queens Center a few miles away, prospective customers browsed the aisles of the Primark store, and some left with an armful of purchases.

Jeanette Torres, a retiree who lives in Brooklyn, heard about the brand from her son. She said the company’s low prices convinced her to shop there. She purchased a T-shirt, underwear and winter hat, which cost a total of about $30.

She said she likes that those prices don’t come at the expense of the store experience. Primark has brighter lights and neater locations than off-price retailers like Burlington Stores, where she said “everything is on top of everything.”

Bruce Wolinsky, another retiree from Queens, made his first trip to Primark by accident. He went to the mall with his Macy’s credit card, a 25% off coupon and a need for a new pair of shoes.

He never made it to the department store. Instead, he walked into Primark and walked out with a $22 pair of lace-up navy blue and brown sneakers.

— CNBC’s Gabrielle Fonrouge contributed to this report.

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