Ford’s first new headquarters in 70 years will have a showroom similar to the “James Bond villain’s lair”, the design chief has said.
Ford Motor Co.’s new headquarters, the automaker’s first since Dwight Eisenhower was president, is twice the size of the old one and can accommodate twice as many employees.
The new headquarters has seven restaurants spread across a 160,000 square foot (14,864 square meter) food hall, offices, design studios and manufacturing workshops.
And of course, the cars.
The “jewel” of Ford headquarters, according to Ford Land’s global design and brand director, is a showroom that she likened to “the lair of a James Bond villain.”
“But it’s impressive. When you’re there, you feel like you’re at the center of automotive design,” Jennifer Kolstad said last week, after leading a media tour of the new 2.1 million square foot (195,096 square meter) headquarters.
“Its main function is decision-making,” she said. “This is where we introduce our new product and where our executives make decisions about what we will bring to market. »
Ford is moving its headquarters for the first time in seven decades, to the newly constructed building 3 miles away in its longtime home of Dearborn, Michigan.
The new structure is called “Ford World Headquarters.” It is part of a larger campus which will take the name of the current headquarters: Henry Ford II World Center. Henry Ford II was the grandson of company founder Henry Ford and the uncle of Bill Ford, executive chairman of the automaker.
Ford’s current headquarters, known as “The Glass House,” opened in 1956 and will be demolished. The 122-year-old company plans to complete its move in 2027. It is not disclosing the cost of the project.
“Ford wants a new headquarters that reflects what they think they are and what they want to be in the future. They don’t want to be seen as yesterday’s car company. They want to be seen as tomorrow’s car company,” said Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. “And they need to attract new types of employees. They’re competing for software engineers, AI experts. Every company on the planet wants the same people. These people are used to working in cool new offices.”
Ford is not only focusing on modern amenities in its new home, but also prioritizing proximity.
When the new headquarters comes fully online in two years, it will have more than 14,000 employees within a seven-minute walk and another 9,000 within a nine-minute drive, said Jim Dobleske, CEO of Ford Land.
And unlike The Glass House, where managers are separated from their employees, the new headquarters building is designed to enable better and greater collaboration between teams.
“(Ford CEO) Jim Farley has said in the past, ‘When you walk into our existing headquarters building, you don’t really know if you’re walking into Ford or if you’re walking into a shampoo company,'” Dobleske said. “This building, you know you’re walking into Ford Motor Company.”
Some workers have already moved inside the new headquarters, which is to be the site of a grand opening ceremony on Sunday.
General Motors is also in the process of moving its headquarters, leaving its Renaissance Center headquarters in Detroit for a new office building downtown.
Gordon, the Michigan business professor, said “both companies want a new look.”
They “want to be seen as forward-looking companies – companies that are good at software, AI and things they weren’t known for in the past,” he said.
