AKRON—Goodyear held the grand opening for its new global headquarters May 9 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by company executives and employees, state, county and city officials and the media.
Richard Kramer, the tire maker's chairman and CEO, said the new global headquarters represents Goodyear's “commitment to Akron” and “Northeast Ohio,”
a “genuine collaboration” and an “evolving and innovative Goodyear.”
The company broke ground on the 639,000-sq.-ft. facility April 18, 2011. Employees began moving from the old building in mid-February and were settled in by March 25.
The new building is designed to obtain a Silver rating for Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED), with much open space and windows for natural light. To maintain a green environment, building materials included wood from old growth logs reclaimed from Ohio rivers.
The campus décor features patent numbers lining the walls of the innovation center as well as photos of different places the Goodyear blimp has been. The new campus is significantly smaller than the former one, with the new global headquarters building, innovation center, parking deck and parking lots all sitting on 216.3 acres and measuring 1.5 million square feet, while the former campus rested on 480 acres and tops out at 5.17 million square feet. Approximately 3,000 employees work in the new building.
The new headquarters is located about a mile from Good-year's old one, which was purchased by Industrial Realty Group for use as a business incubator.
For more information about Goodyear's new headquarters, check out the May 13 edition of NewsPoint on www.tirebusiness.com—and visit TB's Facebook page.