Citi bank debuts new Tampa office designed for hybrid work

Citi is celebrating the redesign of its Tampa office on Wednesday.

The bank and investment company that employs more than 10,000 people in the Tampa Bay region spent $60 million to upgrade its office on Interstate 75 and Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. The building features more natural lighting, a 24-hour market and a fitness center and medical center that have an on-site nutritionist and physical therapist.

The remodeling began during the pandemic and lasted 18 months. Many features are meant to maximize human interaction in a hybrid-work setting, said Citi managing director and Tampa site leader Nick DellaSerra.

“[Employees] have the flexibility in Tampa to work at least three days from home and two days in the office, and it provides the best of both worlds,” DellaSerra said. “It provides flexibility to have better work-life balance but we also stressed the importance of being in the office because we’re better together.”

In this conversation, DellaSerra spoke with the Tampa Bay Times about the amenities Citi built for employees and what it means for the future of work. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What are some of your favorite parts of the redesign?

The redesign, first of all, represents a very significant investment on Citi’s behalf in our Tampa facility. It’s really a spectacular facility. It covers over 137,000 square feet we’ve made available to our employees. It features a large cafeteria, has an excellent selection of food choices, we have a fitness center, we have a medical center. We also have an on-site physical therapist and nutritionist.

So the site is not only designed to provide those services, but it also accounts for how we work today with very large open-area conference facilities for employee collaboration. It’s really meant to be a site where people can come together to enjoy some of the things that I talked about, but also to utilize the space for collaboration, meetings, working sessions and a variety of other things that people do as part of their daily jobs.

Why is Citi doing this in Tampa specifically?

Citi continues to invest in Tampa. Citi is one of the largest financial services companies in the world, we’re headquartered in New York. We have a very large presence here in Tampa with over 10,000 staff and our staff in Tampa are really a true representation of Citi more broadly in that we have staff here who work for many of our businesses. So whether it’s private banking, markets and security services, treasury and trade solutions, or functions such as compliance, legal, finance, public affairs, to name a few, we have employees right here who work for all those departments. We also have a very significant operations and technology presence here in Tampa. We’re growing and [Tampa] has been and continues to be a strategic center for Citi, certainly in North America and globally.

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What are some things that help build a better work environment that hasn’t been there before?

If you look at the space itself, it’s a much more open. There are a number of areas that are specifically geared toward active collaboration. It is a much brighter space. Before, it was a little bit more of an enclosed space. And it also has some of the latest technology that that we brought in, whether it be through our some of our computer facilities, some of our conferencing facilities, and it also incorporates a number of wellness elements.

What do you think this says about the future of work?

We introduced a new work model in 2022 and the majority of our workforce is what we call a hybrid working model. They have the flexibility in Tampa to work at least three days from home and two days in the office, and it provides the best of both worlds. It provides flexibility to have better work-life balance but we also stressed the importance of being in the office because we’re better together. So by virtue of providing this facility and these collaboration spaces, it promotes that kind of collaboration. And it really maximizes the effectiveness of people’s time together.

What are some details that help maximize that collaboration?

Well, it’s just the facility itself. The building that we’ve renovated acts as a center meeting point for the entire campus. We have a number of other buildings, but this is where people come to do some of the things that I talked about whether it’s eating or fitness center, the medical center, it’s kind of like our common point. It’s very welcoming and conducive. There are places where people can go and grab a coffee, sit down and speak, all those things, promote, working together in an in-person environment that frankly, the feedback from our staff has been it’s been very refreshing that not only can they work together with their colleagues which they hadn’t been doing during the pandemic, but they’re able to do so in such a pleasant setting with all the amenities that we just discussed.

Is the ribbon cutting ceremony launching the official first day that people go into the office or have people already started to work there?

It’s a ribbon cutting for the new building but it’s kind of a kickoff celebration to celebrate our presence in the Tampa Bay market for 40 years. It’s a great way for us to kick off that year of celebration and it’s indicative of Citi’s commitment to the Tampa Bay area.

We reopened last year. People started coming back in that hybrid-model last year and even the building itself opened late last year. But we never really had a chance to do kind of an official reopening celebration. So this is our way of celebrating our return to work as well as the new facility that we’ve opened up.