Charter Communications opens new Stamford HQ
STAMFORD — When Charter Communications moved its headquarters to Stamford in 2012, it brought about 75 employees to work on a couple of floors in a downtown building at 400 Atlantic St.
Today, its offices tower over the city center in a new complex, which covers more than 900,000 square feet and serves as the base for approximately 1,700 employees.
The new, glass-sheathed hub at 400 Washington Blvd., next to the downtown Metro-North Railroad station, was built because the Fortune 500 company outgrew its previous headquarters at 400 Atlantic. On Monday, about 300 Charter employees gathered with elected officials including Gov. Ned Lamont for an event to celebrate the opening of the new headquarters, whose construction has been supported by an approximately $100 million company investment.
“When we started this construction project, we didn't really know that we were going to get what we got. But we got it,” Charter CEO and Chairman Tom Rutledge said at the event. “It reflects the success we've had, but (also) the opportunity that we still have. I look forward to working with everyone in this room, going forward in this facility, to build a greater company.”
Local and state officials have enthusiastically supported Charter's growth. Through the First Five Plus corporate-incentives program launched by the administration of former Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, the company received loans of $10 million and $6.5 million, up to $10 million in tax credits and a $2 million grant.
For the $6.5 million loan, the entire principal balance was forgiven in 2015. For the $10 million loan, $7 million of the principal balance was forgiven last year — and the remaining $3 million could be forgiven if the company meets certain job goals. So far, it has earned $2 million of the tax credits.
In addition, Charter could receive up to $8 million in non-First Five Plus tax credits.
“If I learned anything over these last couple of years that I shouldn't have had to learn, it's that cable, telecommunications, broadband and IT is not a ‘nice to have,' it's a ‘got to have,'” said Lamont, who founded a cable company focused on the college market, before he was elected governor in 2018. “When we were stuck with COVID, people were not going to be able to continue to educate their kids, if it wasn't for broadband. We weren't going to be able to continue a lot of health care without telehealth… I'm so proud that Connecticut is one of the most connected states in the country — and how vital that was over the last two years and what that means going forward.”
Building a new headquarters
Charter, which ranks No. 69 on this year's Fortune 500 list of the largest corporations in the U.S., has been growing rapidly for years.
In October 2017 — about five years after relocating the headquarters from St. Louis, Mo., to Stamford — the company announced plans to move the main offices from 400 Atlantic to 400 Washington. At that point, the latter property consisted of only a parking garage. Charter partnered on the property's development with Stamford-based Building and Land Technology, which is also the developer of the mixed-use Harbor Point complex that has transformed the city's South End in the past decade.
The announcement reflected a massive expansion in Charter's reach resulting from its acquisition in 2016 of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks. Boosted by the pandemicsparked spike in demand for home internet service, it has continued to grow robustly in recent years. At the end of the first quarter of 2022, it counted about 32.2 million customer relationships, compared with 31.4 million at the same point in 2021. In its home state, Charter has about 127,000 customers.
A workforce of more than 93,000 delivers Spectrum internet, cable and phone services across 41 states including Connecticut.
Today, the headquarters is nearly complete. Building 1, which opened in March 2021, covers about 532,000 square feet across 14 floors. Building 2, which opened last March, encompasses about 288,000 square feet across nine floors. Building 2 includes offices and amenities such as a fitness center.
There is also an approximately 94,000-square-foot, three-floor “connector” structure between Buildings 1 and 2, where Monday's event was held.
The key remaining pieces of the construction, an auditorium in Building 2 and an outside amphitheater, are scheduled to be completed by the end of this summer.
No longer needing office space at 400 Atlantic, Charter sold the approximately 500,000-square-foot building for $72 million earlier this year.
Charter officials expect to do much more hiring in the next few years, with the headquarters large enough to house about 3,000 employees.
“I just want to say, as mayor, how grateful and thrilled we are to have Charter Communications in our city,” said Simmons, whose father, Steve Simmons, is a cable entrepreneur. “These (headquarters) buildings are truly beautiful. They are iconic buildings and really make heads turn. I hear it every morning from my son, as we pass these buildings on the way to drop him off at preschool. He's always saying, ‘Mom, look at those beautiful buildings!'”