Ford Motor shows off new high-tech HQ

DEARBORN, Mich. — Ford Motor Co.'s new headquarters, the carmaker's first central office switch since Dwight Eisenhower was president, is double the size of its old one with room for twice as many employees. The new HQ has seven restaurants as part of a 160,000-square-foot (14,864 square-meter) food hall, office space, design studios and fabrication shops. And, of course, cars. The "crown jewel" of Ford's headquarters, according to Ford Land's global design and brand director, is a showroom she likened to a "James Bond villain's lair." "But it is impressive. When you're in it, you feel like you are in the center of automotive design," Jennifer Kolstad said this past week, after leading a media tour of the new 2.1 million square-foot (195,096 square-meter) HQ. "Its principal function is decision-making," she said. "It's where we showcase our new product, and our executives make decisions about what we will take to market." Ford is moving its headquarters for the first time in seven decades, relocating to the newly constructed building 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) away in its longtime home of Dearborn, Michigan. The new structure is being called "Ford World Headquarters." It is part of a larger campus that will take the name of the current HQ: Henry Ford II World Center. Henry Ford II was the grandson of company founder Henry Ford and the uncle of Bill Ford, the automaker's executive chairman. Ford's current headquarters, known as "The Glass House," opened in 1956, and will be demolished. The 122-year-old company expects to complete its move in 2027. It is not disclosing the cost of the project. "Ford wants a new headquarters building that reflects who they think they are and who they want to be going forward. They don't want to viewed as the car company from yesterday. They want to be viewed as a car company for tomorrow," said Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business. "And they need to attract new kinds of employees. They're competing for software engineers, AI experts. Every company on the planet wants the same people. Those people are used to working in new, very cool offices." Ford not only is focusing on modern amenities in its new home, it also is prioritizing proximity. When the new HQ is 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, Ford Land CEO. And, unlike The Glass House, where executives are separated from their employees, the new headquarters building is designed to allow for better and more collaboration between teams. "(Ford CEO) Jim Farley has said in the past: 'When you walk into our existing headquarters building, you're not quite sure if you're walking into Ford or if you're walking into a shampoo company,'" Dobleske said. "This building, you know you are walking into Ford Motor Company." Some workers already have set up shop inside the new headquarters, which is to be the site of a grand-opening celebration on Sunday. General Motors also is in the midst of a headquarters move, departing its Renaissance Center home in Detroit for a new downtown office building. Gordon, the Michigan business professor, said "both companies want a new look." They "want to be seen as forward-looking companies of the future -- companies that are good at software and AI and things that they haven't been known for in the past," he said.