diff --git a/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/globalarrays/package.py b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/globalarrays/package.py
index 19af1b63019..2ddf8c8b623 100644
--- a/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/globalarrays/package.py
+++ b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/globalarrays/package.py
@@ -26,15 +26,18 @@
 
 
 class Globalarrays(CMakePackage):
-    """The Global Arrays (GA) toolkit provides a shared memory style programming
-    environment in the context of distributed array data structures.
+    """The Global Arrays (GA) toolkit provides a shared memory style
+    programming environment in the context of distributed array data
+    structures.
     """
 
     homepage = "http://hpc.pnl.gov/globalarrays/"
-    url      = "https://github.com/GlobalArrays/ga"
+    url = "https://github.com/GlobalArrays/ga"
 
     version('master', git='https://github.com/GlobalArrays/ga', branch='master')
 
+    variant('i8', default=False, description='Build with 8 byte integers')
+
     depends_on('blas')
     depends_on('lapack')
     depends_on('mpi')
@@ -57,4 +60,7 @@ def cmake_args(self):
                 '-DCMAKE_Fortran_FLAGS=-qzerosize'
             ])
 
+        if "+i8" in self.spec:
+            options.extend(['-DENABLE_I8=ON'])
+
         return options