Matt Glynn: M&T's 'tech hub' awaits its moment to shine

That was also supposed to be the case last year, but the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted M&T's plans.

When M&T finally takes full advantage of its refurbished office space inside Seneca One, the tech hub will provide a jolt to the city's tallest building.

For now, the vast majority of M&T's employees are working from home, and will keep doing so through at least April 4.

Anticipation has built for a year and a half, since M&T confirmed Seneca One as its choice as the tech hub's home. The bank will lease 11 floors in the tower itself, plus two floors in the building's pedestal, for a total of 330,000 square feet.

Seneca One, under owner Douglas Jemal, is undergoing a revival even apart from the tech hub. New apartments have debuted. The lobby was refurbished. Business tenants have moved in. And the whole complex got a new paint job.

But there's no denying M&T will bring a surge of energy and workers to the complex when the bank decides the time is right. M&T has projected moving 1,000 employees into the building and increasing that figure to 1,500 within three years.

M&T officials have remained steadfast in their commitment to the tech hub, even as the pandemic has driven many office employees to work from home. M&T calls the project a "generational investment" that can be adapted to meet the safety requirements for people who work there.

“We’ll be able to make modifications," said Michele Trolli, M&T's chief technology and operations officer. "As the return does occur, we have a lot of opportunities and a lot of leverage and a lot of options to bring people back in a very slow, measured way when the time is right."

What makes the tech hub significant isn't just what it means for M&T's operations.

The bank wants the tech hub to become a magnet for like-minded businesses to move into the tower, to promote development of the region's tech sector. The bank imagines a place where collaboration occurs and new ideas take shape.

43North and some of its portfolio companies are there. Odoo and Lighthouse Technology Services chose Seneca One, as has Serendipity Labs, a flexible office provider.

M&T says cultivating a skilled tech workforce is essential to the region's future, not just its own. That line of thinking opens up the potential to train more of the people – women, veterans and people of color – who are historically under-represented in tech.

M&T has made the tower the home base for its new Tech Academy. The academy has just launched an initiative to provide free tech training for thousands of local workers hurt economically by the pandemic.

M&T also has started a program to train new recruits to be mainframers, and has a Technology Development Program to develop new tech talent for the bank. 

Just a few years ago, the downtown complex then called One HSBC Center had lost its two major tenants, HSBC Bank USA and Phillips Lytle. The entire building eventually emptied out, leaving its future in question.

The tech hub will provide new direction. All that awaits is the greenlight from M&T to move in.

"This is a place where we're not trying to be first, we're trying to be safe, the safest," said Rene Jones, M&T's chairman and CEO. "We're operating today in a way that sort of meets our customers' needs and I think that gives us a bit of a luxury to test and learn. And one of the things that is really nice about the space over there is that, quite frankly, the way the space is laid out, it's a lot more square foot per person.

"And it actually turns out that it will likely be very conducive to social distancing," he said. "And we were able to think about that a little bit, with the extra time that we've had so you know I think we'll get back slowly. We won't be first. But my sense is you'll see groups of us come back together as we go throughout the course of the year."