Welcome home: Chime’s new San Francisco Headquarters
“Prior to the pandemic, when and whether to open a new office and how to design the space was a straightforward decision for our team,” says Kai Shane, Chime’s Director of Real Estate and Workplace. “Either we were outgrowing our space in a current location, or leadership might decide that opening in a new market would benefit talent acquisition efforts, and by and large, employees worked from the office every day. Now, things aren’t as straightforward — they’re very complex.”
When the pandemic started, Chime was in an enviable position: growing very quickly and in need of a new HQ in San Francisco — we were simply going to run out of space in our pre-pandemic office. “I was touring and looking at spaces, and then COVID hit,” she remembers. “Our team paused for a year to get a sense of where the real estate market was going and to plan for our new circumstances.”
During that time, because companies couldn’t occupy their offices, Kai saw a lot of sublease availability but knew it wasn’t the right move for Chime. We were experiencing high growth, and she felt we were ready for the next stage of our headquarters. “We were ready for our own offices, reflecting our culture and designed from the ground up for how we work.”
Finding the perfect space
With years of experience, Kai knows very well that the decision around new office space is part art and part science. The science is straightforward: the space needed to be near public transportation for ease of accessibility and convenience for Chimers, and it also needed robust security, including things like turnstiles and dedicated elevators. On the less tangible side, it also needed to represent “to candidates and Chimers how far we’ve come and our future potential — we wanted it to say ‘we’ve arrived,’” Kai says. Ultimately, evaluating a building or space comes down to the feeling it evokes and envisioning what could exist in the space.
The added challenge of hybrid work
With the space requirements defined, Kai and her team still had to face the challenge of hybrid work. “Talking about hybrid work is easy, but when it comes to opening a new office in a hybrid work environment, things aren’t as clear,” she says. “The biggest challenge for us was to design a space for hybrid work when the world is largely still figuring out what that will look like.”
So she and her team conducted research, talked to experts and Chimers, and held visioning sessions to envision what working from a hybrid office might look and feel like. “We had to make some principled decisions and take some risks, and we invested in occupancy sensors so we can obtain rich data on how the space is being used,” she says. “We’re the first to recognize that we’ll have to iterate — we’re prepared to act on the information we gather once our office opens.”
Chime’s new home: 101 California
When Kai stood in the plaza of the monumental building that stands at 101 California Street in San Francisco, she was excited about what a Chime office at that address would mean. The building is an iconic office tower nestled in San Francisco’s Financial District, the 10th tallest in the city, and was occupied largely by traditional financial and professional service firms.
“I love that the space was available because the former occupier, a traditional financial services firm, was downsizing,” Kai says. “Chime is moving into a space that a traditional financial institution gave up — that’s a powerful metaphor.”
When Kai and her team toured the space, envisioning its future was an active exercise: it had been unimproved since the 1980s and contained lots of dark wood paneling, outdated desks, and pneumatic tubes for sending banking orders. When they left the tour of the six floors and roof deck, the team knew it was the space for Chime.
101 California is a 48-story office tower featuring a 7-story podium; Chime will occupy the entire 200k sq ft podium of the building. With external signage and served by a dedicated elevator bank, the space feels like its own building, which was another compelling factor about the opportunity.
Crafting a space that’s truly Chime
“To make the space our own, we took it down to its shell of concrete floors, bare walls, and exposed ceilings,” explains Kai. “Then we set out to build a space organized around a large central courtyard and an open stair: opening the floors to build the added complexity and cost to the project, but we wanted to make it easy for Chimers to move freely within the space, and the open, connecting stair as a physical artifact represents our highly collaborative culture, which is built on open communication and interpersonal connection. The social spaces are designed around the courtyard and open stairs — the heart of the space — with workspaces around the perimeter.
The office is also specifically designed for hybrid work. In this new environment, the office is no longer a default location for employees to work from every day but a destination Chimers will choose to come to for a specific reason: collaborating or workshopping with a team, kicking off a project, or just getting together with coworkers. “The office needs new spaces to support those activities,” Kai says. “We’ve created collaboration spaces that are different from traditional conference rooms; they are bigger, have different furniture in them, and can be reserved for days or weeks at a time. We imagine these spaces will be used by teams in sprints, design kickoffs, or long-term projects.”
There are still team neighborhoods, and there are desks, of course, but most Chimers will reserve one for that day. The desk reservation technology will also allow Chimers to see when coworkers are coming to the office so that they can coordinate schedules.
The space also includes many more areas to socialize. The cafeteria will function as a lounge space when not used as a dining space, so it’s more likely to be activated during the day. And in many of the points of the triangular building, themed lounge spaces will give Chimers spaces to hang out or book for team gatherings.
“We created a dedicated leadership floor for our executive team but have been very thoughtful about creating a reason for employees to go to that floor,” Kai explains. To that end, the micro kitchen on the leadership floor is equipped with pour-over stations for folks to gather around. “In fact, every floor has a micro kitchen with a unique offering, which builds in a motivator for people to walk around and interact with folks who aren’t on their team,” Kai says.
“We loved getting to translate Chime’s culture and values into a physical space — every time we made a decision, we’d ask ourselves if it was values-aligned, and I think we did a pretty good job,” says Kai.
A data-driven workplace
“We’re going to be really informed about how people use the space,” Kai explains. Every area will have occupancy sensors to tell her team how many people are using the different space types. They’ll learn things like whether the number of people in a conference room matches the size of the space, or if phone rooms are consistently booked and perhaps there’s a need for more. “Using data to inform how our office evolves is the only way we’ll be able to ensure that it’s meeting Chimers’ needs and that we’re truly adapting to our new hybrid work model,” Kai says.
And of course, food
It wouldn’t be a Chime office without food, of course: “Food is such a great way to bring people together: the entire point of our office is to bring people together to collaborate, feel a shared sense of purpose, and strengthen culture — a food program is a huge part of that.”
So Chime’s new HQ will serve a daily breakfast and lunch menu, and offer catering for team gatherings. “We’re excited to offer a culinary program that will give Chimers a chance to connect over a shared meal after years of working at home.”
Bringing it home: Why we’re all here
Chime’s new office was chosen and designed around our core values, one of which is “be member-obsessed.” To strengthen Chimers’ connection with our members, Kai and her team designed an installation featuring Member portraits.
“I’ve always thought about how office design can strengthen the shared sense of purpose by connecting employees to customers, to bring them together in a space somehow,” Kai says. “Ultimately, we landed on adding portraits of members to the space, bringing Chime’s reason for existence into the heart of our building.”
As Kai and her team step back to welcome Chimers into our new HQ, they look forward to seeing us enjoy the space, learning how the space serves us, and seeing our reflected pride in being part of this company.
“I’m excited to see the smiles on everyone’s faces when they see our new space — I think folks will be truly grateful for a space that reflects our values and culture and will usher us into this next chapter of Chime’s story.”
