23-05-2025
Alliance Bernstein Completes Real Estate Makeover With New Hudson Yards Office
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
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Global financial services company Alliance Bernstein opened a new office in the Hudson Yards neighborhood of Manhattan in September 2024, featuring four floors of space meant to delight high-net-worth clients, with an AI "dream wall" in the lobby signaling its commitment to the future of technology.
This new office was the culmination of a 10-year plan that saw the investment giant move offices across Hong Kong, London and within the United States.
Previously headquartered in New York City with another office in White Plains, New York, Alliance Bernstein opened a new, seven-floor corporate headquarters in Nashville in 2022. That office now holds employees across legal, audit, human capital and risk, COO Karl Sprules told Newsweek during an exclusive tour of the Hudson Yards office with design firm Gensler and Alliance Bernstein's head of real estate, Lev Gordon.
"This [New York City] office is predominantly for investors and private wealth," Sprules said, emphasizing the importance of mentorship and collaboration in the company culture and a three-days-a-week office-attendance policy. "The core office is Nashville."
Over 10 years ago, the company made the decision to develop open-office layouts across the world, going from spaces that were nearly two-thirds composed of private offices down to zero private offices. The company's leadership also decided to shift locations from top-end metro areas to emerging ones.
"Our offices are all different everywhere. They provide a similar quality of amenities and overall workplace, but aesthetical architecture is all very different because we're trying to attach it to the local culture, local history," Gordon told Newsweek.
Featuring the dream wall in the lobby, the four floors of the new New York office represent a significant downsize from the million-square-foot presence in the company's old Sixth Avenue and White Plains offices, which are set to close this year.
The new space is in The Spiral Tower in Hudson Yards, an area redeveloped as part of New York City's bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympic Games on the site of a former rail yard. Gordon noted an appreciation for the architecture of the building, including nods to the elevated tracks and trains that previously ran through the area.
"This office doesn't look anything like Nashville," Gordon said. "We tried to make it more New York."
The first-floor lobby area featuring cafe and AI dream wall, as well as plenty of casual seating.
The first-floor lobby area featuring cafe and AI dream wall, as well as plenty of casual seating.
Alliance Bernstein
An Inviting, AI-Decorated Entrance
The AB Hudson Yards office opens with a reception desk and concierge on the left and a café-like area on the right side, with the dream wall in view. Employees can use a central flight of spiral stairs to walk up and down between the office's four floors; on the top three floors, the stairheads and elevator banks open to kitchen areas, from where hallways lead to "neighborhood style" work areas.
"We wanted to bring as many people as possible back without pushing," Gordon said from the luxuriously appointed, fully stocked lobby café. "We are trying to be more hospitality than just an office."
To create the AI dream wall, Gensler and Alliance Bernstein collaborated to identify thousands of photos that fit the intended inspirational vibe. The goal was to build a "parent" dataset so that the software would produce AI-generated imagery on a 33-foot by 9-foot LED mesh display. From there, 240 feet of slightly less fine LED "wallpaper" adorns the first-floor hallway.
Employees rounding a corner.
Employees rounding a corner.
Alliance Bernstein
"These are the images that are matching the artistic intent of our team," Eran Sharon, creative technology officer at Gensler, told Newsweek, describing the process to "teach" the software to create the continuously updating image on the wall. "Once we have those, we're basically giving them to the model that we've created with a whole set of constraints," he said.
The image updates every 90 seconds and never repeats.
"There's a dual purpose for this, one is showcasing AB's commitment to technology and the AI revolution happening around us and at the same time creating a space that is inviting and unique as an installation statement," Sharon said.
The LED first-floor hallway walls dynamically change color when people walk by, and the way they change evolves over the course of the day. On another floor, a leather wall will become slowly worn and change as people walk by and touch it over the years, Gordon said.
The first floor's outer areas contain conference rooms equipped for entertainment or privacy, depending on the visiting client's needs. At the end of the floor, a larger, modular space with floor-to-ceiling windows is meant to host training, external programs and larger gatherings. For now, it has an unobstructed view of the Hudson River, though a new development next-door may impede the view in the future.
AB has also mostly done away with assigned seats. Those who commit to coming into the office four days per week can get a desk, but otherwise the structure comprises department-based neighborhoods and different styles of workspaces that allow for focused work, full-team collaboration and everything in between.
"The workplace is all open. ... We tried to find maximum amenities for people, so they don't feel bad that they've left their private offices," Gordon said.
The space's amenities include secure cubbies, a kitchen, coffee and snacks on each floor as well as package-handling services. Dozens of video-equipped, reservable rooms sit on each floor. A light outside indicates if the room is available.
"Technology is a huge lever for us," Sprules said. "We've got a massive investment in tech and operations. That's the biggest group of employees by a long way, over 2,000 people in that organization."
The large conference room at the end of the first floor.
The large conference room at the end of the first floor.
Alliance Bernstein
The Strategy Behind the Space
For Sprules, from his position as COO, the 10-year plan for new offices was meant to improve employees' quality of life by moving to more affordable areas with shorter commutes. They were also meant to push the company culture forward.
"We have a very collaborative culture, we like to find people who are intellectually curious, who want to work together in this space," Sprules said. "The people are doers. They're curious, and they want to work as a team; the space is meant to help that."
Sprules also felt strongly about the need to bring people into the office. It was a priority before the pandemic and after, when AB was one of the first companies to bring employees back to the office in 2021.
Of course, COVID-19 put some bumps in the road.
"We designed all this out way before we thought the pandemic was even a thing," Sprules shared. This complicated the migration to Nashville, but today that office houses over 1,200 employees, and the company has 90 percent compliance on its attendance policy.
AB has also equipped its buildings with advanced meeting and conference-room technology, including external lights to indicate availability, switch-activated privacy shutters, smart cameras, microphones and Zoom-enabled call rooms. This tech-forward design is meant to demonstrate the company's commitment to the future. A statement piece like the dream wall signifies a desire to grow comfortable and familiar with AI and emerging technology.
A staircase connects all four floors of the space.
A staircase connects all four floors of the space.
Alliance Bernstein
"We think generative AI's got this massive opportunity, but you've got to get people to use it, practice it, incorporate it in their daily lives. We thought the dream wall was a great way of pushing that front and center," Sprules said.
On a day-to-day basis, Sprules said, the new office space is meant to encourage mentorship and help employees develop and learn from each other.
"If you look at how people are trained here, it's the sort of apprenticeship model," he explained. "People sit next to folks and learn the trade. We knew we wanted to keep that and deal with the inequity of having people remote and having people inside the office, so we heavily leaned into technology with these Zoom rooms and a lot of high-quality video at the desks."
Sprules shared that HR helped ensure considerations like mother's rooms and that he heavily weighed business unit leaders' feedback for what their teams needed from a new space.
"A lot of the feedback comes directly from the business," he said. "[Human capital] is our partner when we're thinking about the demographics of our people and what they need, such as mother's rooms and prayer rooms."
The company has come a long way from the old-school financial services haunts that Gordon said "looked more like a law firm" with all of the executive offices and secretary offices. The company also had an old-school way of completing work. That's no longer the case.
"If you looked at our offices back then, there was almost no technology. ... People came to meetings with a pen and a pad of paper," Sprules said. "We want to think of ourselves as a tech-forward asset management wealth management firm," he added. "Ideally the space is supposed to encourage that idea."
