The new Sherwin-Williams headquarters fits in with its neighbors in the Downtown Cleveland skyline. And that new HQ is full — so much so that IT staff were reportedly allowed to work remotely so employees at another downtown building could move in (The Sherwin-Williams Company). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.
SHW backs off RTO for its IT staff
When Sherwin-Williams’ (SHW) headquarters was still under construction in 2024, the company’s executives said they would wait and see how employees filled out the new tower just west of Downtown Cleveland’s Public Square before making any new facility-related decisions. As the tower fills, they’re starting to get some answers.
According to a well-placed source who spoke with NEOtrans on the condition of anonymity, the new headquarters tower is so full that the company is partially pulling back on its Return-To-Office 100 percent edict, effective Jan. 1. That pull-back affected its Information Technology (IT) staff.
That’s a sizable number of full-time employees — more than 300, according to the source. The company’s goal was to get as many of its employees as possible out of all four of its Downtown Cleveland buildings and into the new, 1.1-million-square-foot HQ by the end of March. But that’s not going to happen despite recent staff reductions.
In downtown, SHW had its HQ in the 1930-built Landmark Building, 101 W. Prospect Ave., spillover HQ staff in the 1991-built Skylight Office Tower, 1660 W. 2nd St., more spillover HQ staff in the 1931-built Higbee Building, 100 Public Square, and the Breen Technology Center, 601 Canal Rd.
Nearly all of Breen’s staff was moved last year to the new Morikis Global Technology Center in Brecksville and the rest to the new HQ. About 3,600 workers were spread among the old HQ, Skylight and Higbee. The new tower has space for about 3,100 employees although many workers are sharing spaces, the source said.
Shortly before lunchtime, this eatery at the new Sherwin-Williams headquarters was moments from seeing hungry workers flood into it. Historic buildings in the Warehouse District are seen in the background because Sherwin-Williams’ land for future expansion hasn’t been developed to block the view (The Sherwin-Williams Company).
The source said about 300 workers were moved from Higbee to the new HQ tower, taking the place of the now working-from-home IT staff. That still leaves nearly 200 employees at Higbee and they probably aren’t going anywhere for a while.
The reason is that SHW is spending $500,000 at the Higbee Building to renovate about 12,000 square feet of common-area amenity spaces. That’s about 4,000 square feet on each floor it subleases from Key Corp. at Higbee, according to public records filed with the city.
At Higbee, SHW subleases 212,742 square feet of space. It occupies the entire 77,322-square-foot sixth floor, the 67,713-square-foot eighth floor and the 67,707-square-foot ninth floor.
SHW’s lease at Skylight has expired and the company was on a month-to-month lease with Bedrock Real Estate at Landmark. It appears that Higbee is the only readily available space SHW has left for future HQ staffing growth.
NEOtrans reached out to SHW’s corporate communications staff for comment but did not receive any reply prior to publication of this article.
A meeting-collaboration space in Sherwin-Williams’ new headquarters tower. The building is filled with spaces like this to foster creativity and productivity among its staff (The Sherwin-Williams Company).
SHW previously said it would make no new decisions regarding adding more HQ space until it saw how employees fit into the new, 616-foot-tall, 36-story office tower. That included a possible second HQ tower SHW teased when it first revealed its designs for the first HQ.
The source said that SHW has no intentions of making any major changes to staffing at its flex office space at 4780 Hinckley Industrial Parkway in Cleveland. Sherwin-Williams leases it from IRG Dayton I LLC and has been there since 2017. SHW has about 325 employees at its 151,830-square-foot flex office space.
Among its suburban properties, SHW in 2023 sold to Industrial Commercial Properties LLC its 105-acre technical center in Warrensville Heights. About 100 employees from that complex were moved downtown and the rest to Morikis in Brecksville.
Also in 2023, SHW leased 75,000 square feet at the Sapphire Corporate Center, 6825 Engle Rd. in Middleburg Heights from Harsax Management for a robotics center. About 30 employees work in the robotics center.
Last year, SHW offered a Voluntary Separation Program to an unknown number of employees in the finance, enterprise technology, and business services departments in an effort to cut costs. It also briefly withheld contributions to employees’ 401(k) retirement accounts until its financial situation improved last month.
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