Detroit has long been a hub of innovation, creativity, and reinvention.
Apex Digital is building upon that momentum by moving our headquarters to Jefferson Hub in Detroit and building the new facility as an Experience Center from the ground up.
We will host hands-on sessions where organizations can see how hybrid work planning, in-office coordination, and space insights come together in practice. This will be built with Microsoft Teams, Places, and Copilot at the core.
The move is also a statement about where we want to grow. Detroit is home to many of the customers, partners, and community relationships that matter to our team.
It’s the right place to host workshops, invite leaders into the room, and build a space that supports long-term hiring and talent development in the city.
We’ll explore why Detroit became the strategic home for this move, how this space supports the way we hire, develop people, and work alongside our customers, and what the Experience Center is being built to enable.
Detroit as the strategic home for Apex Digital’s new Experience Center and corporate headquarters
Over the past few years, the city has gained significant momentum with innovation and business growth. In Corktown, the Michigan Central district has become a hub for mobility and climate-focused work. Ford reopened Michigan Central Station in June 2024 as part of a broader investment in the district. Newlab at Michigan Central has grown to 106 member companies and about 675 individual members in its first 14 months.
Downtown, major investments are reshaping the business core. The Hudson’s Detroit development is bringing new office space to Woodward Avenue, and General Motors has relocated its Detroit headquarters there. At the regional level, the Detroit Regional Partnership reports that since 2020 it has helped attract 121 projects, representing an estimated $9.4B in investment and 36,500+ jobs.
That momentum is part of the story, but the practical reason is simple: this is where many of our customers, partners, and community relationships already are. Our goal is to create a space where it is easy to host working sessions, workshops, and leadership conversations without making people travel across the region.
The academy mindset behind how we build our team
A big part of this move is tied to how we think about hiring and development. We build teams the way you build capability in an organization: with coaching, repetition, and responsibility.
We are driven by an “academy” mindset, influenced by Jack Connelly’s approach to developing people over time. We hire for potential, we train with intention, and we give people real-world opportunities to grow into high-impact roles.
That means we invest in the fundamentals, then build depth through experience:
- Clear standards and playbooks so team members understand what “good” looks like
- Mentorship and peer coaching built into day-to-day work, not saved for annual reviews
- Hands-on learning through real scenarios, where people practice and improve in the environments customers use
- Growth paths that help people move from learning to ownership, with support at each step
We want people to grow roots here, keep developing, and take on bigger challenges as they’re ready. Putting this new HQ in Midtown supports that model because it makes learning more visible, more collaborative, and easier to sustain through in-person connections when it matters.
It also connects directly to the purpose of the Experience Center itself: bringing people into the space to work through real scenarios, building plans together, and leaving with clarity they can apply immediately.
What the Experience Center is being built to enable
The goal of the Experience Center is to help organizations make confident decisions about hybrid work by seeing it in action. Teams should leave with a clearer plan for hybrid rhythms, space needs, and the Microsoft tools that support both.
When teams are trying to improve hybrid work, the challenges lie in coordination, consistency, and clarity. People need a shared way to plan in-person time, understand how space is being used, and create rhythms that support real work.
That’s where the Microsoft ecosystem comes in. In the Experience Center, we show how Places, Teams and Teams Rooms, and AI tools like Copilot connect to support intentional hybrid work from planning through execution.
What visitors will do in the Experience Center
The Experience Center is being built for hands-on sessions with customers and partners, including:
- Hybrid work planning workshops that map out what in-person time is for and how to support it
- Scenario-based demos showing how Teams, Copilot, Outlook, Places, and meeting spaces work together in practice
- Teams Rooms experiences that help leaders evaluate room types, meeting behaviors, and AV setups that match their workstyles
- Operational planning sessions that translate the experience into rollout steps, adoption plans, and governance decisions
- A production studio where we can demonstrate how advanced events like Teams Town Hall and Webinar events, customer stories, and internal videos can be recorded in a professional setting. This studio will also be available for customers and partners to use at no charge.
- A device bar that lets visitors get hands-on with current workplace gear from partners like Logitech, Yealink, Jabra, and Steelcase, including laptops, meeting devices, docks, headsets, webcams, microphones, room scheduling panels, and collaborative displays.
- Community gatherings and social sessions designed to help customers, partners, and peers connect, share experiences, and learn from one another
This will provide a clear view of what’s possible, what would fit their organization, and what steps to take next.
Conclusion
Over the coming months, we’ll share updates as the space takes shape, along with examples of what we’re learning as we design an office around hybrid work. Keep an eye out for highlights on the technology that will be built into the core of the Experience Center.
If you want the high-level announcement, you can read our press release.
If you’d like to be included in an early workshop or visit once sessions open up, email us at hello@apexdigital.com.
