Mid-century modern designs with history and surprises

DETROIT – OUTSIDE GMNew World Headquarters Between the 12-story building and the city’s first new skyscraper in more than 30 years sit two red Chevrolet pickup trucks.

One is a 1963 Chevrolet K20. The other is a new Silverado EV. The trucks, while part of a temporary holiday display, are a symbol of what’s inside the automaker’s new global offices in Detroit: its past and present, woven together.

GM occupies four of the building’s six office floors and has filled them with artifacts, design nods and “Easter eggs” tied to the Detroit automaker’s history.

They range from a blueprint of GM’s signature design dome and an early map of nearby proving grounds to interior wallpaper featuring 300 patented technologies and a decorative wall of cassette tapes with songs featuring the automaker’s trademarks as well as playful references to executive figures like CEO Mary Barra and President Mark Reuss.

“Leadership asked when we were helping to design the space to bring in some Easter eggs and details to represent who we are at GM, you know, and honor our culture and our history and our innovations,” Rebecca Waldmer, GM’s director of industrial design and experience, told CNBC during a tour of the new headquarters.

Other surprises include references to relevant Detroit streets, design influences from GM’s iconic design campus in suburban Detroit and artwork and sculptures for its products.

Aside from aesthetics, GM officials say the new offices will help with collaboration and will be more relevant to how the company expects its employees to work in a post-pandemic world. It will include executive offices and other institutional functions such as marketing, legal and financial affairs.

“Headquarters should, at some level, be a beacon for the company culture,” said David Massarone, GM’s vice president of infrastructure and corporate citizenship. “When you come here, it should help people understand who we want to be.”

The new headquarters represents a significant reduction in the automaker’s office square footage — from a high-rise complex called the Renaissance Center along the city’s riverfront to just four floors, nearly 200,000 square feet, in the new building.

General Motors’ new headquarters was located less than a mile from RenCen, as it was commonly called, which has, ironically, since become a symbol of the city. ford motor She built the complex but decided not to make it her headquarters in the 1970s. General Motors purchased the building in 1996 as its third headquarters, all located in the Motor City.

RenCen is Detroit’s fortress, a 5.6 million-square-foot complex complete with a central tower more than 700 feet tall surrounded by four 500-foot towers and two smaller adjacent towers.

It is very difficult to get in and out of the complex and move around. For much of its existence, it was surrounded by concrete barriers before being redesigned at the turn of the millennium.

It has long been a virtual shake-up of GM’s historically insular culture, which Barra has made changing a priority during her nearly 11-year tenure as CEO.

“RenCen was designed in a different era, in the pre-Covid era, where everyone went to work five days a week, everyone went to their office,” Massarone said. “Especially, in a post-pandemic world, you need office space that people want to come to, because we have options.”

GM’s U.S. salaried employees, which number about 50,000, are currently required to work in offices Tuesday through Thursday, but the rules are more flexible than before regarding location and remote work.

Most of the company’s new executive offices on the top floor of the building will be open for executives to use as they please, Massarone said. Only four of the offices will be permanently assigned to GM’s top executives, such as Barra and Royce, he said.

General Motors declined to reveal the number of employees expected to work regularly at the new headquarters, saying that traffic will fluctuate based on priorities and workflow. The company also refused to disclose the financial details of its 15-year lease on the new headquarters.

The building complex, known as Detroit Hudson, is owned by a real estate company Rocket companies Chairman and billionaire Dan Gilbert, who has been buying and renovating properties in Detroit for more than a decade.

Aside from the office areas and the executive floor, all of which overlook an open atrium, GM also plans to open a semi-public space for displaying products and hosting events on the first floor of the building.

Other amenities include social gathering areas, lounges, food and beverage services, a pickleball court and an entertainment area.

GM’s new headquarters, which is still under construction, comes months after Ford established a new 2.1 million-square-foot global headquarters and product design and development center in nearby Dearborn, Michigan.

The new Ford facility includes offices, design, industrial operations and an array of amenities such as a 160,000-square-foot dining area with eight “kitchen concepts,” multiple courtyards and other upgrades.

The notable difference in size between the new GM and Ford headquarters is due to the location, number of employees, and the automakers’ offices and operations across the region.

General Motors, for example, has a massive technology and design center occupying 710 acres in nearby Warren, Michigan. This campus has more than 24,000 employees.

GM didn’t feel the need to create a “city within a city” for its new headquarters, Massarone said, because it is, in effect, “a building within a city.”

Here’s a look inside GM’s new global headquarters: