This is a surprising time in the world to be opening a swanky New York City office, but for IBM the moment felt just right. When the tech giant unveiled its newest offices at One Madison Avenue in September, dignitaries from state, local and federal government arrived for the ribbon cutting, including New York Governor Kathy Hochul and Senator Chuck Schumer.
The 113-year-old technology company has been in New York since its founding in Endicott, and has maintained a sprawling headquarters in Armonk, a Westchester County hamlet 40 miles outside of Manhattan, since 1964. Now they have a new, 270,000-square-foot space overlooking Madison Square Park, equipped with IBM technology to support sustainability and collaboration while also accommodating the realities of a hybrid working world.
"We feel like we really were meant to be in this vibrant location," Joanne Wright, SVP of transformation and operations at IBM, told Newsweek in a recent sit-down conversation. "It's bringing it home for us in a new, single location for New York City employees."
Armonk remains the HQ, but a new gathering spot now exists for IBM employees, clients and guests in the heart of Manhattan, aiming to consolidate the company's presence in the city from about a dozen different locations, many of which resulted from a slew of acquisitions made by IBM over the past few years.
"[The new Manhattan office] is a strategically timed co-location strategy that was really focused on creating a clear call to their purpose as an organization, a call to action as individuals and a call to innovation with their clients," Amanda Carroll, managing director at Gensler and the design lead for this new space, told Newsweek in a phone interview earlier this month.
It's also meant to be an attractive space to come work, complete with a 25,000-square-foot, 10th-floor outdoor terrace, which features over 40 different plant species, half that are native to the region.
The new space holds around 2,000 people at maximum capacity. It includes many nods to the company's rich past, such as photos taken by photographer Ansel Adams of the old IBM offices and displays of historic company inventions.
"Whether you're a developer, finance, operations, marketing, comms, every type of seller and consultant," Wright said, adding, "this is going to be our heart and core."
Employees enter from an exclusive lobby that contains a 40-foot "quantum wave" light sculpture whose blue aura can be seen from Madison Avenue at night. They can then take an escalator up to the second floor, a gathering space that features a technology showcase center, a café and meeting area that turns into a bar at 5 p.m., as well as panoramic views over Madison Square Park and its adjacent streets.
"IBM is the historic anchor of New York's innovation economy, both in manufacturing and services," Kathryn Wylde, president and CEO of Partnership for New York City, a civic interest nonprofit, told Newsweek via email. Wylde was also in attendance at the September 6 ribbon cutting.
"Today, technology is New York's fastest-growing industry, thanks in no small part to IBM's leadership over the decades," Wylde continued. "IBM's investment in spectacular new offices in the heart of Silicon Alley is a statement of their long-term commitment to the city and state."
The second floor Innovation Studio, a 22,000-square-foot space showcasing new technology offerings, includes the latest technology for sustainable and smart cities as well as interactive demonstrations of AI and computing advancements.
"We've only just begun to realize the full potential, but it's already clear the boost in team collaboration, productivity and IBMer engagement," Molly Vannucci, senior partner, strategy & acquisitions, IBM Consulting, told Newsweek via email.
While IBM is making a statement with this space, the rest of the corporate world has seemed hesitant to dive into big real estate investments as commercial vacancy rates remain high and are expected to continue rising. Providers have an opportunity to adapt by offering flexible spaces and shorter-term leases as long-term leases are falling out of favor.
IBM is expecting this move to supercharge its workforce and client and channel partner relationships, as well as educational and community offerings in this five-floor office that was conceived for a remote-friendly world.
"It was unusual because not many companies were making commitments to NYC in terms of commercial offices," Carroll said. "Another signal that IBM's strength and their confidence as an organization extends far beyond specific moments in time."
Now that employees are not required in the office five days a week—IBM's policy has been a recommended three days a week—the approach to new office spaces must change.
"It's definitely designed to be a destination versus an obligation and a place where there's almost momentum that propels itself because there's so much dynamic activity that's happening there on a daily basis," Carroll said.
At One Madison Ave., there are no assigned desks, no assigned offices, but a variety of different desk and collaborative spaces that are in many cases modular; they can be easily moved around to accommodate groups of different sizes. This new office has the potential, certainly, to be a beacon for prospective employees as well.
"They've got to be focused on how are they going to recruit talent," Matthew Cypher, director of the Steers Center for Global Real Estate at Georgetown's McDonough School of Business, told Newsweek over the phone. "The opportunity with this new building is just how they remain competitive, because it's hard enough to get people to come back into the city center without a good, quality building."
The company also offers different moods of work environment for people so that they can feel comfortable, and their experience includes access to an office concierge service and an app to reserve spaces and order food from the cafeteria.
"We've designed this space with an incredible focus on filtering for purpose. Every material, every space type, addition of color, texture was really challenged to stand up to the test of 'How will this serve the business?'" Carroll shared. "In this landscape today, that's not very common, it's a lot of layering of design features," essentially a "design of abundance [approach]. This design is categorically different."
IBM CEO Arvind Krishna was heavily involved in the project, Carroll and Wright said, along with CHRO Nickle LaMoreaux and Senior Vice President, Marketing and Communications Jonathan Adashek. Krishna, an avid gardener, was reportedly quite pleased to see all of the plants on the 10th-floor terrace. But more importantly, his increased involvement highlights the newly evolved role of office spaces in company strategy.
"The leading occupiers in the commercial sector today see the workplace as a tool for competitive advantage," Carroll said. "For the most successful, they are inviting, lighting is designed to be a part of everything—inviting the work setting to be an accelerator for positive impact and innovation."
In offices today, compared to offices in 1950, 1980, or even 2018, the employee is viewed as someone the company needs to entice to come into the office—at least that's the philosophy at the organizations that are not instituting strict return-to-office mandates.
"In the workplace today, the employee is a consumer, just like you would see in a retail, hospitality or entertainment setting. You have to get to know their preferences...what kind of experience they want, who they want to be with, where they spend their time and why," Carroll explained.
Wright shared that IBM had been conducting research on its employee personas and preferences for years, for reasons not specifically related to this office project alone. Having started her career as an intern at the company and moving up into a variety of leadership roles and functions over the years, Wright joined IBM full time in 1998. She's been the SVP of transformation and operations, a senior leadership position, since 2022.
Over the years, Wright has witnessed this new paradigm shift for the office and is optimistic that she and IBM have set themselves up nicely to accelerate client and employee relationships and collaboration going forward.
"This was our moment in time to say, 'Let's actually build the future of IBM,'" she explained. "We knew that we could create something that was really going to be an incredible collaboration, an incredible community, and then it's actually going to give people a really great opportunity to want to be back together to want to learn from each other, to want to collaborate."
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