Melaleuca moves to new headquarters; open house still pending

The empty parking lot at Melaleuca's old office building on South Yellowstone Highway.

Melaleuca, Inc., moved its operations last week from South Yellowstone Highway to its new $50 million complex near Interstate 15 Exit 113, but there are a lot of finishing touches to be made.

Company spokesman Anthony Lima said employees are settling in, but many of the common areas still need to be finished. He estimated the work could take another few weeks and that an open house may come after the first of the year.

Melaleuca broke ground nearly two years ago on its 371,000-square-foot corporate headquarters nearly triple in size of the office space it was occupying. The new location puts it closer to the company's research and development building and warehouse.

The stage for expansion was set in July 2012 with the announcement of a $399,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to Bonneville County for sewer line extensions, a lift station and roadway widening. Melaleuca contributed $1 million of its own money to the project, bringing its total infrastructure investment in the area to $2.3 million.

At the time of the groundbreaking, Melaleuca CEO Frank VanderSloot said he expected the project to result in new jobs, but declined to estimate how many. Melaleuca passed $1 billion in annual sales in 2011. The company makes and distributes close to 350 health and wellness products through a network of "marketing executives" who earn commissions based on product purchases by customers they refer.

Although the majority of Melaleuca’s business growth has been in the United States and Canada, global sales accounted for 45 percent of the company's 2013 revenues. Melaleuca does business in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, Canada, the Bahamas, Jamaica, Singapore, Malaysia, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.