R/GA is closing its Hudson Yards office in New York City as well as its office space in downtown San Francisco as part of a larger restructuring, states CEO Sean Lyons.

As part of the restructuring, the global agency is moving away from its city model in the U.S. and instead implementing a country model with five disciplines powering the business. With the emphasis away from cities, R/GA, in partnership with IPG, is opting out of its leases in New York and San Francisco, Lyons wrote in an email obtained by Adweek.

“Today, 45% of our US staff live far from our offices, and 80% of our project teams bring together talent from more than one location,” Lyons wrote in the email. “The ability to bring talent together from everywhere is the backbone of our Distributed Creativity model. Now we need the infrastructure that supports it.”

Lyons noted in the email that currently only about 40 employees a day, plus a few clients, use the “cavernous” office on a daily basis. Lyons said that the agency will eventually reopen a smaller hub in New York in 2023. With employees all over the country, the agency will consider other physical hubs in the U.S. where employees are concentrated or near clients.

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