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《Dow Corning employees tour new Uptown offices, get acquainted with downtown Bay City》：

BAY CITY, MI — Chelsea Berger’s job is all about change.

As a change management specialist for Williams Township-based Dow Corning Corp., it’s her job to help fellow employees understand and work through anything new or transitional in the workplace.

Change is certainly afoot as 310 Dow Corning employees prepare to relocate to new offices at Uptown Bay City, a 43-acre riverfront development.

“I think it’s really great,” Berger said of the new office space during a tour Thursday, July 10. “I think it shows that Dow Corning is trying to be innovative like a lot of other large companies … the Googles of the world.”

Berger, who lives in Saginaw Township and is among those relocating to Bay City, said she looks forward to the move.

“I’m very excited for it. I really am,” she said, noting she is somewhat familiar with Bay City, having shopped and dined here. “It’s a change … and I think that it’s a positive change.”

About 150 Dow Corning employees were in Bay City on Thursday for a bus tour of the area, a stop at the historic State Theatre and a first look at the company’s new offices at Uptown.

Dow Corning Communications Manager Lindsay Kuhnle said the tour was intended to help employees get acquainted with the community, area businesses and attractions.

“The mood is, obviously, upbeat, and they’re very excited,” she said while aboard a bus shuttling a group of employees from Uptown to the State Theatre, located at 913 Washington Ave.

Uptown Bay City, which developer Peter Shaheen has called a “new neighborhood of downtown,” is to become home for the Dow Corning employees beginning in August. Dow Corning specializes in silicone and silicon-based technology. The majority of the workers relocating to Uptown now work at corporate headquarters in Williams Township, but some work elsewhere in the Great Lakes Bay Region.

Another group of about 150 Dow Corning employees is taking the same Bay City familiarization tour on Wednesday, July 16.

The tours offer an opportunity for the employees “to actually see Bay City, to see their neighbors, to see where they’ll be working,” Kuhnle said.

Candace Bales, director of Bay City’s Downtown Development Authority, said the influx of workers is big news for Bay City.

“It’s huge, needless to say. … We’ve been almost counting the days for their arrival,” she said.

Thursday’s tour started at the State Theatre, where Shaheen, Bay Area Chamber of Commerce President Mike Seward and a few others addressed the group.

It was there that Shaheen announced an Aveda salon will be coming to Uptown, joining other tenants previously announced, including Chemical Bank, Courtyard by Marriott, Real Seafood Co. and McLaren Bay Region.

After the presentations, Dow Corning employees once again boarded buses.

Bales was joined by fellow tour guides Herb Zeilinger, motor coach and group sales manager for the Great Lakes Bay Regional Convention & Visitors Bureau, and retired weatherman Eric Jylha in pointing out landmarks and attractions as the buses traveled through downtown and over to Bay City’s West Side for a look at the Midland Street Historic District and the Veterans Memorial Park area along the Saginaw River.

The Pere Marquette Depot, historic Trombley-Centre House, Stein Haus, Dockside restaurant, Bay City Motor Co. and Bay City Antique Center were among the highlights of the tour.

The buses then took the employees back to Uptown, where many got their first look at their new offices.

Frank DeLano, senior project leader at Dow Corning and longtime Bay City resident, is pleased with the new work space.

The floor plan is open and includes a number of mini conference rooms or “enclaves” and other group spaces where employees can meet and talk.

“I like the new collaboration that we’re trying to work towards,” DeLano said. “I experienced that years ago when I was in Japan, and I like that style. It’s going to be different, but a lot of work we do is in that informal communication, informal collaboration.”

As a Bay City resident, DeLano said he likes seeing the project come to fruition. And he hopes Uptown will help bring more young families to Bay City.

“Living in Bay City so long, and coming across Vets Bridge, seeing the cement plant for so long and the stone piles — I’ve always thought there was so much possibility here, and it’s nice to see it actually happen,” he said, referencing two former businesses located at the site now known as Uptown — Stress-Con Industries and Wirt Stone Dock.

“I’m just really excited for what it’s going to do for Bay City.

Bales said she thinks Dow Corning employees will like what they see in Bay City.

“I think they’re going to choose to live here,” she said. “… That’s exactly what we hope will happen.”