In January 2022, James Hardie Industries opened a new United States headquarters in a 68,000-square-foot office at 303 East Wacker in Chicago, overlooking Lake Michigan and the Chicago River. The company moved its leadership team from an older space on LaSalle Street, and the relocation was part of a broader transformation from a building products manufacturer into a consumer brand. The ribbon cutting included the governor of Illinois and the company’s CEO, and the event drew attention to how much planning goes into a corporate headquarters move.
Headquarters projects follow the same pattern whether the company employs 50 people or 5,000. Leadership picks a location, designs space around the way people actually work, chooses construction systems, and sets performance goals for energy and carbon. Some general contractors go further and build their own headquarters with pre-engineered systems, proving that the methods they sell to clients work for their own facilities. The decisions made in the first months determine the building’s cost, schedule, and long-term value.
Choosing the Right Location and Building
The location decision drives everything that follows. James Hardie chose Chicago in part because Illinois offered a manufacturing base, including a plant in Peru, Illinois, and a workforce pool that supported both the office and the factory. Corporate leaders weigh access to talent, transportation links, client proximity, and incentives when they shortlist cities.
The building itself matters as much as the city. Some companies lease space in an existing tower, others build from scratch, and still others renovate a structure with character. A hybrid mass timber headquarters in San Mateo County demonstrates how a company can pair a specific location with a sustainable structural choice, and the combination becomes part of the brand story.
Evaluating a Headquarters Site
- Check the commute. A site near transit or highways widens the labor pool.
- Compare lease costs against ownership. Long-term ownership builds equity but ties up capital.
- Review zoning and entitlements before signing anything.
- Look at expansion room. A headquarters that cannot grow forces a second move.
- Confirm utility capacity for power, water, and data.
Existing Building vs. New Construction
An existing tower like 303 East Wacker offers a fast move-in and a prime address, but the floor plate limits layout options. New construction allows a custom design but adds years and risk. Adaptive reuse sits in the middle, preserving a facade or structure while upgrading systems, and it often unlocks historic tax credits that offset the cost of replacing outdated mechanical systems. Each path changes the construction schedule and the carbon footprint.
Designing Workspace for Collaboration
The 68,000 square feet in the James Hardie office supports the company’s consumer and market-led innovation goals. The design gives the leadership team unobstructed views of the river and downtown, with Lake Michigan visible on clear days. The deliberate sight lines were meant to lift attention beyond building exteriors to the neighborhoods where customers and employees live and work. The layout pairs the executive floor with shared spaces so formal and informal conversations happen within the same sight lines.
Office layouts have shifted from private offices to a mix of open collaboration zones, focus rooms, and meeting spaces. The TK Elevator North American headquarters shows how a company can turn its own product into the design centerpiece, using elevator and vertical transportation systems to organize circulation in a tall office building.
Space Standards by Work Mode
- Open collaboration areas: 80 to 120 square feet per person
- Enclosed offices: 120 to 200 square feet each
- Conference and huddle rooms: 10 to 15 percent of net area
- Amenities such as cafes, fitness, and wellness space: 5 to 10 percent of net area
Density Benchmarks
A typical headquarters allocates between 150 and 250 square feet per employee, and the number falls toward 100 square feet in dense open plans. The 68,000-square-foot James Hardie office, with its leadership focus and large amenity floors, sits at the higher end of that range. The benchmark matters because space cost is the second largest line item in most headquarters budgets after payroll.
Construction Systems and Material Selection
The structural system shapes the schedule, budget, and carbon profile. Conventional steel frames dominate mid-rise and high-rise offices, pre-engineered systems suit low-rise and industrial-adjacent buildings, and mass timber is gaining ground for its speed and sustainability.
| Approach | Typical Height | Schedule Impact | Carbon Profile | Best Fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conventional steel | Mid to high rise | Longest | Higher embodied carbon | Dense urban sites, tall towers |
| Pre-engineered systems | Low rise | Fast | Moderate | Warehouses, light industrial, budget-driven projects |
| Mass timber | Low to mid rise | Fast with prefabrication | Lower embodied carbon | Campuses, sustainability-focused brands |
| Concrete | Mid to high rise | Long | Highest embodied carbon | High seismic zones, parking podiums |
Campus expansion design strategies used at CalSTRS in West Sacramento illustrate how phased growth changes the construction plan. A headquarters campus that adds buildings over time can standardize structural systems, share utilities, and negotiate better contracts than a one-off project.
Mass Timber Advantages
Cross-laminated timber panels arrive prefabricated, which cuts erection time and reduces the number of trades on site. Project data consistently shows embodied carbon reductions of 25 to 40 percent compared with concrete and steel frames, before accounting for the carbon stored in the wood itself. Panels are fabricated to tight tolerances in a plant while foundation work happens on site, so the schedule compresses from both ends.
Pre-Engineered Systems
Pre-engineered metal buildings use standard frames and panels fabricated in a plant, which shortens the design phase and trims waste. They work best for headquarters with large open floors, warehouse components, or a plan to expand later.
Sustainable Features and Carbon Goals
Corporate headquarters have become showcases for sustainability because the building is visible to customers, investors, and recruits. The Illinois governor’s remarks at the James Hardie opening tied the company’s manufacturing approach to the state’s carbon-free production future, and the plant in Peru, Illinois, anchors that story.
EV charging infrastructure for corporate headquarters has moved from a perk to a planning requirement. Parking garages and lots now get conduit and panel capacity for chargers before occupancy, because retrofitting after the fact costs far more.
Planning an EV Charging Program
- Survey employee vehicles and commutes to size the charger count.
- Install conduit and panel capacity for future expansion.
- Place chargers near the building entrance for visibility and equitable access.
- Set pricing and access rules for employees and visitors.
- Track usage data to justify the next phase of installation.
Measuring Building Performance
Energy use intensity, water use, and embodied carbon give a headquarters a measurable scorecard. Water efficiency, daylighting, and indoor air quality round out the list, and certification programs such as LEED give companies a third-party check on their claims. Many firms publish the numbers in their sustainability reports, which turns the building into a recruiting and branding asset.
Supporting Employees and the Community
A headquarters move usually comes with a hiring wave. James Hardie opened dozens of new roles across IT, finance, marketing, communications, supply chain, HR, and legal when it settled into Chicago. The hiring plan, the office design, and the community program all need to be ready on the same day.
Corporate giving often launches alongside the building. James Hardie marked more than 15 years of partnership with Habitat for Humanity by presenting a $100,000 check to Habitat for Humanity Chicago, and recognized Veterans Day with a $100,000 donation to the Wounded Warrior Project. Those gestures signal the company’s values to employees and neighbors at the moment the brand is most visible.
Structuring a Corporate Giving Program
- Match employee donations to double the impact
- Offer paid volunteer days with local nonprofits
- Sponsor community projects near the headquarters
- Report giving in annual sustainability or community reports
Measuring Community Impact
Track dollars donated, volunteer hours, and organizations served. The numbers give the program credibility with employees and a basis for next year’s budget.
Planning for Expansion, Renovation, and the Building’s End of Life
A headquarters should anticipate change. Flexible floor plates, extra structural capacity, and shelled space let a company grow without moving. Net-zero building design and construction strategies from a biotech firm’s carbon-neutral headquarters show how early decisions about envelopes, mechanical systems, and renewables lock in long-term performance.
Eventually every building reaches the end of its useful life. When a headquarters outlives its purpose, demolition contractors take over, as happened when the US Playing Card Company world headquarters came down to make way for a new use. The same planning discipline that guided the original construction should guide the teardown, including salvage, recycling, and site preparation for the next building.
A Practical Headquarters Timeline
- Years 0 to 1: site selection, budget, and entitlements
- Years 1 to 2: design, permitting, and procurement
- Years 2 to 4: construction, fit-out, and move
- Year 1 after move: post-occupancy review and adjustments
Post-Occupancy Review
Measure energy use, survey employees, and track how space is actually used. Compare the first year’s utility bills against the design estimates, walk the space with facility staff, and repeat the employee survey every six months while the building is still new. The review tells leadership what to fix and what to repeat in the next project.