Real Estate Practice

Building the office of

the future
JPMorgan Chase’s head of global real estate explains how and why
the company is investing in tomorrow’s workplace.

April 2023
 JPMorgan Chase (JPMC) is constructing a new,
state-of-the art, 60-story global headquarters at
270 Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. McKinsey
partner John Means sat down with David Arena,
JPMC’s head of global real estate, to discuss the
new tower, as well as the company’s Workplace Lab,
where it is experimenting with futuristic office
technology and concepts (see sidebar, “A laboratory
for the workplace of the future”).
Companies that are purposefully fostering
belonging, connectivity, creativity, and wellness for
their employees can yield higher performance,
which is why synthesizing technology, workplace
design, and employee experience is crucial to
success. Means and Arena discuss how JPMC is
pursuing these goals and why today, more than
ever, workplaces need a purpose. The following is
an edited version of their conversation.

A laboratory for the workplace of the future

JPMorgan Chase’s (JPMC’s) Workplace
Lab consists of an entire office floor that
the company uses to test technology and
concepts that it will consider integrating
into its new global headquarters at
270 Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan.
Here are some of the solutions that
JPMC is experimenting with as it seeks
to improve the office space.
Biophilic walls: Office spaces that are cut
off from nature may be draining for
workers. The hope is that abundant plant
life can bring nature inside, contributing
to better air quality and a greater sense of
well-being for employees.1
Aromatherapy: Unpleasant odors—or
simply the absence of a pleasing aroma—
may dampen one’s mood,2 although the
effect can go unnoticed. The theory is that
a light mist of a refreshing scent can help
add a subconscious lift.
Circadian lighting: The body’s circadian
rhythm may be thrown off by unnatural
indoor lighting.3 Lighting that grows
brighter and cooler throughout the day
could help invigorate the body, while
warmer lights toward the evening could
help people find respite and better prepare
them for more restful sleep.
Directional audio: Noisy workspaces can
make it hard for employees to concentrate4
and might be a deterrent to coming into
the office. Directional audio allows users to
hear audio from their computer without
needing to wear headphones while also
masking the sound for other people
sitting nearby.
Reenergizing furniture: Many offices lack
places where people can truly unplug and
relax. A recliner that immerses the user
in soft colored lights and soothing music
can supply a reinvigorating “time-out.”
Agile construction offices: Traditional
office spaces can become outdated as
workforce needs change. Modular
offices, built with walls that can be moved
and reconfigured rapidly, can transform
to meet the evolving needs of agile teams.
Hologram conferencing: In a world of
remote working and far-flung teams that
may have few opportunities to gather,
companies have needed to be intentional
about creating a sense of connectivity
in a digital world. Hologram technology
generates three-dimensional images
of video participants, helping to create the
sense of presence that is missing in
traditional videoconferencing.

1
C arol Birrell and Tonia Gray, “Are biophilic-designed site office buildings linked to health benefits and high performing occupants?,” International Journal of Environmental
Research and Public Health, 2014, Volume 11, Number 12.
2
“The effectiveness of aromatherapy for depressive symptoms: A systematic review,” Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2017.
3
Christine Blume, Corrado Garbazza, and Manuel Spitschan, “Effects of light on human circadian rhythms, sleep and mood,” Somnologie, 2019, Volume 23, Number 3.
4
Emily Henderson, “Loud noises at the office have a negative impact on employee well-being, study finds,” News Medical, February 2, 2023.

2 Building the office of the future

McKinsey: These days, we’re constantly talking to
companies about how every office needs to have a
purpose. What’s the purpose of 270 Park Avenue?
David Arena: We believe that when we are together
in a place and that place is purpose-built and we’re
there together for the moments that matter, we
can’t be beat.
This office has lots of reasons for being. The first
and foremost is it’s a house for employees. It’s
a house for people, it’s a house to bring clients to,
to bring guests in, it’s a place to do business.
It’s the manifestation of the brand in the physical
environment. Everything you look at, everything
you hear, smell, taste, touch, is part of JPMorgan
Chase and part of that experience. You could
say it’s a place to have an experience.
It’s a place for our senior-most people to lead their
teams, and it’s a place for people to come to
work, to be with one another, to share culture, to
share knowledge, to cocreate the future of
their businesses, and to bring dreams to life for
their clients.
McKinsey: Let’s say I walk into the building for
the first time. What’s going to strike me as new
and innovative?
David Arena: The minute you see it from the
sidewalk, you’re going to feel a lot different. Our
building is purposefully lifted off the sidewalk
by 100 feet. We didn’t have to do that, but we did
it to make it more spacious, to welcome the
community in, and to give people a feeling of light
and air in the middle of the city.
We’ll have a thousand bike racks for people who
want to come to work by bicycle. And we have
a designated lay-by lane for self-driving cars, so
that when that happens, we’re ready for it.
I think one of the things we’ve missed in office
buildings is that people want to be known. They want
to be recognized, they want to be welcomed in the
morning, quite frankly, by name. They want to have
a personal experience when they come to work, and
I think there’s a great opportunity to do that.
It’s not much different from when you go into a great
restaurant or a great hotel and somebody meets you
and they know your name. They’ve been expecting
you. So, technology is really important for knowing
when people come in. The way a place smells,
quite frankly, is really important to me, and I think
it’s important to people. We’ve done lots of due
diligence on aromatherapy.
Great hospitality is a series of small moves. It’s the
lighting, it’s the ergonomics of the chair you’re
sitting in, it’s the sense that there are other living
things around you, like plants, it’s the smell of
something, it’s the amount of natural light that
comes into a space, it’s the way the carpet or
the floor feels underfoot.
McKinsey: That sounds much more comfortable
and personalized than offices in the past. But
with attendance rates of below 50 percent in most
major metro areas, some employees will still
be skeptical. Can you make a case for coming
into the office?
David Arena: One of the great reasons to come to
the workplace is to be in physical proximity to
folks that you can learn from. This is particularly true
for younger people who want to learn their craft.
Think back on your own career to a great manager
or a great coach you had. Those learnings are key.
We think they happen best in person, and so we’ve
dedicated almost 200 percent more space in our new
headquarters to those kinds of interactions—for
example, the interactions where a senior executive
gets the opportunity to transfer knowledge to
an emerging executive. We have those spaces
connected throughout the building.
The connection, the knowledge transfer, the ability
to think out loud with others, is so important.
Most creation happens like this. It’s iteration. It’s
how we got to the moon. It’s error, correction,
error, correction.
Building the office of the future 3
 How do you really do that well on video calls, or how
do you do that well remotely? It can be part of it, so
we have solutions for hybrid working, we have
solutions for people who are at home. We even have
parts of the company that work at home full-time.
Another portion works at home one or two days a
week. But there’s probably 50 percent of our
company that’s in the office every day; our traders,
our retail bankers, our support staff—they’re in
the office. That’s where the game is.
Our statistics for people coming back to the office
are really high for Tuesday, Wednesday, and
Thursday. The hard parts are trying to figure out
Monday and Friday right now.
McKinsey: One of the most common criticisms
we’ve heard about on-site work is that it doesn’t
always unite people; you could just end up with
workers messaging each other from their desks.
How can you facilitate collaboration through
your real estate?
David Arena: We’ll have a floor which is essentially
where half the traffic in the building will collide
during the day. It’s designed like a transportation
hub, with places where you can meet a friend, have
a cup of coffee, maybe even have a drink.
That’s right in the middle of the building. Above
those floors, in the middle of the building, are these
incredible conference floors, and those conference
floors are places where we will have guests.
We’ll have guest speakers, places to learn, and
client events.
All of that sort of mixes like this grand mélange right
in the middle of the building. It’s like a great stew
of humanity in the middle of the building, and that
includes leaders, guests, clients, etcetera. It’s
a place to exchange ideas and warm greetings
and camaraderie and to build culture and
esprit de corps.
McKinsey: Let’s talk about remote workers, those
who are either full-time or part-time. How will
you address their needs and integrate them with the
on-site workers? And as the concept of flexible
4 Building the office of the future
work evolves, how can you make sure your real
estate can evolve with it?
David Arena: When people want to stay home or
need to work remotely—because that is where
heads-down work is really done well—we’re going to
have tools for them to connect to the office, as
if they were there, in a democratic way, in a way in
which they still feel the culture, where it’s palpable
to them. That’s our job: to create workplaces
that enable culture and creativity and productivity,
maybe happiness even.
I am really excited about virtual reality and
augmented reality and their use in distance officing.
They help make you feel like you’re together. The
tools are not ready to roll out yet, but we are putting
all the things in place at 270 Park to use them
when they are ready.
The key thing about technology and about thinking
through the future of the workplace and the future
of work is to make things as flexible and as modular
as you can. You have to view buildings and real
estate like a machine, a tool, or a lever. You have to
build them in such a way that they could be changed
for any generation at a reasonable cost, so that
buildings don’t become antiquated.
If you come into a well-designed office space these
days, you really have two planes: a floor plane
and a ceiling plane. Everything else on the floor, if
you design it correctly, is furniture. The walls
are furniture, they come prewired or with glass. Any
such furniture can be moved around.
McKinsey: How are you responding to greater
demands today for buildings that are healthier, both
for residents and for the planet?
David Arena: We have the largest corporate solar
array in the United States. We have a 15-megawatt
solar array in Ohio. Five years ago, the leadership
of this firm made a commitment to create as much
renewable on-site generation as possible. We
have been busy for the last five years creating
renewable, on-site generation, and we’ve
experimented with almost every idea. It does
 come down to solar, wind, and maybe some yet-to-
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be-discovered battery power that works without
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burning fossil fuels. All those ideas will be part of
270 Park.
Elevator, security, air handling, sensoring, lighting
systems, etcetera—they’ve been around for the last
70 years. But today, each one of those systems is
smarter than it’s ever been. At 270 Park, we’re going
take every one of those incredibly smart systems
Scan • Download • Personalize
and we’re going to roll them up into a more intelligent
way of running a building, a system that is all
about automated intelligence, all about learning
from itself.
For instance, if it were too hot in here, that shade
would come down if it was a certain time of the day.
The variable-frequency drive on the fan would
engage. There would be more outside air in the
room, the lights may be dimmer—all of those
systems would work together. This building is also
going to have 2.5 times more outside air than
any comparable facility that I’m aware of in
the world.
When you come into the building, you may work your
way through a security device that knows who you
are by facial recognition or by some other biometric
marker. And it’ll be able to call an elevator just for
you. That elevator will know where you like to go in
the morning—it might drop you off near a coffee
shop in the building. And that coffee shop in the
building might know, via your cell phone, that you’re
in the vicinity and might make your coffee for you.
David Arena is the head of global real estate at JPMorgan Chase. John Means is a partner in McKinsey’s Washington, DC, office.
Comments and opinions expressed by interviewees are their own and do not represent or reflect the opinions, policies, or
positions of McKinsey & Company or have its endorsement.
Designed by McKinsey Global Publishing
Copyright © 2023 McKinsey & Company. All rights reserved.
We haven’t thought about all the ways that a building
can be smarter. But the idea of a smart building
is kind of passé. Even an intelligent building—those
are table stakes. Today, it’s about the intuitive
building, and that’s what we’re working on.
McKinsey: You’re a global company and many
of your stakeholders will never even visit New York
City. How is what you’re learning by planning for
270 Park going to benefit them?
David Arena: We have a community that we call
MyWorkplace. It’s an app, and we’re already using
it and making it better. The idea is to create a
community. We don’t just do this here at 270 Park,
we’re doing it worldwide.
We’re building similar campuses in Bengaluru and
Mumbai. We just built campuses in Hyderabad
and Manila that have all the same attributes. We
built one in Singapore.
We’re also expanding our retail branches. We went
from something like 28 [US] states to having a
presence in nearly every state in the nation in just
the last three or four years. When we build a new
branch, we think about how clients will feel when
they come in. We think about how those branches
connect to the community. We call many of them
community centers, not branches.
Building the office of the future 5