McLaren North America ditches its NY digs for Texas
The company is moving its US headquarters from Manhattan to the Dallas suburb of Coppell.
Imagine that you're one of the world's preeminent supercar manufacturers and you've just outgrown your office space in New York where your US headquarters is currently located. You've got to move somewhere, but where do you go?
Well if you're McLaren North America, you move to Texas. Coppell, Texas, to be exact, according to a report Thursday by Automotive News. It turns out Coppell is a suburb of Dallas right next to DFW airport. It has a population of around 40,000 people, and according to Wikipedia, it has the third-most trees per citizen of any city in the US.
OK, that sounds lovely and all, but why would a company like McLaren North America move there? Well, this should be evident to any of you who have watched the HGTV show Fixer Upper, but things are a lot cheaper in Texas, especially real estate -- something that commands a seriously huge premium in New York City.
"As we've grown and expanded, it became crystal clear that being in the city just is not very practical and doesn't make a lot of sense," Tony Joseph, president of McLaren North America, said in a statement to Automotive News. "Unfortunately, I've got some on my team who have not seen a McLaren because we're on the 24th floor of a high-rise."
McLaren's Coppell facility should be about six times larger than its New York offices too, which should allow it to consolidate some of the more size-intensive operations like its vehicle customization program aka McLaren Special Operations. Previously customers would have had to send their vehicles to the McLaren factory in the UK, but now they'll have a closer option.
The Dallas area was also an exceptionally good fit for the company because it has consistently proven to be one of the highest-selling regions for McLaren in the US. Obviously the oil and gas industry pays pretty well, if you know what I mean.
