Ford to Move World Headquarters After 70 Years, Opening New 2.1 Million-Square-Foot Campus in Dearborn
New campus three miles from the Glass House will consolidate corporate, design and engineering teams and carry the 1 American Road address to its new site
Ford Motor Co. will relocate its world headquarters for the first time in seven decades, moving into a newly constructed 2.1 million-square-foot (195,096-square-meter) building three miles (five kilometers) from its longtime Dearborn campus when the facility opens in November.
The structure will be formally called Ford World Headquarters and is part of a larger campus that will adopt the name Henry Ford II World Center. The move will bring corporate leadership, design and engineering teams into closer proximity, placing about 14,000 employees within a 15-minute walk of the main building and consolidating workspaces intended to foster collaboration and innovation.
Company officials said the new headquarters will include six design studios, more than 300 technology-enabled meeting rooms, wellness rooms, mothers’ spaces and a 160,000-square-foot (14,864-square-meter) food hall open to all employees. Ford has said the relocation will move the 1 American Road address — long associated with the automaker’s headquarters — to the new building, underscoring the company’s intent to maintain continuity even as it changes locations.
"When we move to the new headquarters, the 1 American Road address will move with it, because we're going to continue to develop products for the next century," said Ted Ryan, Ford's heritage and brand manager, speaking near the company’s existing Glass House building.
Ford’s current headquarters at 1 American Road — colloquially known as the Glass House — opened in 1956 and was at the time one of the nation’s largest office buildings occupied by a single company. The new headquarters sits on the site of the former Product Development Center, a facility dedicated in 1953 in an event that President Dwight D. Eisenhower joined live through one of the early uses of closed-circuit television.
The Product Development Center and the Glass House have been central to Ford’s design and engineering legacy. Vehicles developed at the Dearborn site include the Mustang, Thunderbird and the F-Series trucks, among the company’s best-known products. Ryan noted the deep ties between Ford and Dearborn, saying the location has long served as a family home for multiple generations of the Ford family.
The relocation comes as the Detroit-area auto industry reconfigures its footprints. General Motors is also in the midst of a headquarters move, leaving its longtime site along the Detroit River for a new downtown office building. Ford’s decision to concentrate corporate and product teams on a single campus reflects a broader industry trend toward integrated work environments aimed at accelerating product development and technology integration.
Ford said employees will begin moving into the new campus in the months ahead, with the formal opening scheduled for November. Company officials have framed the move as both a return to a site with deep historical ties and a step toward modernizing how teams collaborate as the automaker pursues new technologies and electric-vehicle programs.
Construction of the new headquarters and campus has proceeded on the footprint of facilities that shaped much of Ford’s postwar product development. The company has not disclosed detailed relocation costs but has highlighted the campus’s amenities and the anticipated benefits of colocating leadership with design and engineering groups for decision-making and product timelines.
As Ford prepares to vacate the Glass House after nearly 70 years, the company said it will continue activity in Dearborn and maintain its historical connections to the community. The move will mark a significant shift in the company’s physical presence but, by transferring the 1 American Road address, Ford aims to preserve the symbolic continuity of its headquarters in the Detroit suburbs.