Risking Irrelevance, NYC’s Cadillac House to Close in SoHo

Cadillac has now completed its pullback from New York City: Cadillac House is closing, completely. 

Last fall General Motors announced it was returning its Cadillac corporate operations from Cadillac House in NYC’s hyper-hip SoHo section. Now Cadillac said it’s also closing the co-located showcase/experiential center.

GM felt there were more synergies and efficiencies having its people all in the Michigan time zone. Plus, Cadillac plans a new vehicle every six months through 2021 and being together is important.


Cadillac moved to New York City in 2014. The reason then was: Cadillac wanted to be an international auto company regarded as an equal to Audi, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz, not just to Lincoln. Cadillac was getting closer each year. It wanted to put distance between Cadillac and the GM mothership.

The reason behind the pullback apparently was that SoHo is a been-there, done-that kind of place. Time to do something else.

Never mind that Taylor Swift, Matt Damon, Trevor Noah, Jon Bon Jovi, Justin Timberlake & Jessica Biel, and Howard Schultz (ex Starbucks CEO, maybe presidential candidate) all moved in next door, figuratively speaking. SoHo is vibrant if you’re hip and have money. To wit, Cadillac’s kind of market.
In other words, by returning to Detroit, Cadillac risks thinking of the competition once again as Lincoln instead of the world’s best. Sure, Lincoln is improving.

But right now it’s Cadillac that has the best chance among US automakers of being the Cadillac of motorcars, back when that meant something.