Tecumseh Products Companywill move its headquarters into 15,000 square-feet of a 50,000 square-foot office building at 5683 Hines Drive in Pittsfield Township on Friday.
The company purchased the building located in the State Street Business Park in November 2010. The majority of the building functions as the Tecumseh Global Technology Center, which opened in May 2012 and replaced outdated lab space previously located in Tecumseh.
An aerial view of the new Tecumseh Products headquarters and technical center.
From Tecumseh Products
“Any time you have sales, marketing, and engineering staff working out of the same space there’s a lot of necessary collaboration that is much easier than it would be if you separated by geography. The ability to have impromptu meetings will make us much more effective.”
The company moved from Tecumseh to its headquarters at 1136 Oak Valley Drive in Pittsfield Township in 2008 in large part due to proximity to the University of Michigan. Smith said the new headquarters would have a smaller footprint but be more efficient.
“It’s going to be a smaller space for us, but we weren’t utilizing the space at Oak Valley very effectively,” he said.
“We are going to make much better use of the space We are maintaining our staffing level with the move. Everyone that was working on Oak Valley is moving over to Hines.”
Once the move is completed, the combined headquarters on Hines Drive will employ just over 100 people. The company employs about 7,300 worldwide.
In addition to changing locations, Tecumseh Products has experienced some leadership turnover in the past two years.
In 2011, the companies chief financial officer took over as CEO after disappointing results, and earlier this year the company’s chairman of the board stepped down citing an increased “pace of strategic decision making.”
Ben Freed covers business for AnnArbor.com. You can sign up here to receive Business Review updates every week. Reach out to Ben at 734-623-2528 or email him at benfreed@annarbor.com. Follow him on twitter @BFreedinA2