Mid-century modern designs with history and surprises

DETROIT – Outside General enginesThe new world headquarters, between the 12-story building and the city’s first new skyscraper in more than 30 years, sit two red Chevrolet vans.

One is a 1963 Chevrolet K20. The other is a new Silverado EV. The trucks, although part of a temporary holiday exhibit, symbolize what lies inside the Detroit automaker’s new global offices: 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 map of GM’s iconic design dome and an early map of its nearby proving grounds, to an interior wallpaper of 300 patented technologies and a decorative wall of cassette tapes with songs featuring the automaker’s brands as well as playful references to management stalwarts such as CEO Mary Barra and Chairman Mark Reuss.

“Management asked, when we were helping to design the space, to bring in Easter eggs and details to represent who we are at GM, you know, honoring our culture and our history and our innovation,” Rebecca Waldmeir, GM’s head of architecture and industrial design experience, told CNBC during a tour of the new headquarters.

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

Aesthetics aside, GM officials say the new offices will make collaboration easier and be more relevant to how the company expects its employees to work in a post-pandemic world. It will house management offices and other corporate functions such as marketing, legal and financial services.

“A corporate headquarters really should be, on some level, a beacon for the company culture,” said David Massaron, GM 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 size of the automaker’s headquarters, going from a massive complex called the Renaissance Center along the river to just four stories, or about 200,000 square feet, in the new building.

GM’s new headquarters is less than a mile from the RenCen, as it is commonly known, which has been a symbol for the city since, ironically, Ford engine built the complex but decided not to make it its headquarters in the 1970s. GM purchased the building in 1996 as its third headquarters, all located in Motor City.

The RenCen is Fortress Detroit, a 5.6 million square foot complex featuring a 700+ foot central tower surrounded by four 500 foot towers and two adjacent smaller towers.

The resort is infamous for entering, exiting and navigating. For much of its existence it was surrounded by concrete barriers before being redesigned around the turn of the millennium.

It has long been a sort of physical permutation of GM’s historically siled culture, which Barra has made it a priority to change during his roughly 11-year tenure as CEO.

“The RenCen was designed in a different time, in a pre-Covid time where everyone was going to work five days a week, everyone was going to their desk,” Massaron said. “Particularly in a post-pandemic world, you need office spaces that people want to come to, because we have options.”

GM’s approximately 50,000 U.S. employees are currently required to work in the office Tuesday through Thursday, but the rules are more flexible than before regarding workplace and remote work.

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

GM declined to disclose how many employees are expected to work regularly at the new headquarters, saying attendance will fluctuate based on priorities and workflows. The company also declined to disclose financial details of its 15-year lease for the new headquarters.

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

In addition to the offices and executive floor, all of which overlook an open atrium, GM also plans to open a semi-public space to display its products and host events on the building’s first floor.

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

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

Ford’s new facility includes offices, design and industrial operations and a host of amenities such as a 160,000-square-foot dining hall with eight “kitchen concepts,” multiple courtyards and other enhancements.

The notable difference in size between GM’s and Ford’s new headquarters comes from the automakers’ location, staffing levels and portfolio of offices and operations throughout the region.

GM, for example, has a large technology and design center that occupies 710 acres near Warren, Michigan. This campus is home to more than 24,000 employees.

Massaron said GM didn’t think it was necessary to create “a city within a city” for its new headquarters because it is actually a “building within a city.”

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