Step inside a recently renovated office and chances are high that you’ll see a bleacher staircase.

The bleacher staircase — a combination of steps and bench seating — has become a popular feature in interior corporate workplace design. The structure is typically placed in a central location, often near the main lobby.

It provides an informal space inside office buildings for companies to host an all-hands-on-deck staff meeting while making a mildly dramatic visual statement to visitors and employees that the building represents an inclusive organization.

But Mark Lamster, architecture critic for the Dallas Morning News, said the interior bleacher staircase has worn out its welcome. Lamster's issues stem from staircases being uncomfortable to sit on and that they can separate people with mobility issues from the rest of the group.

“Functionally, bleacher stairs are awkward at best,” wrote Lamster, who’s also a visiting faculty member at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. “A stair is far from ideal as a seat back and, if there are no cushions (commonplace, in my experience), they can be exceedingly uncomfortable.”

Comfort isn’t the point, Molly Addington, design director at Gensler in Seattle, told CoStar News. Their purpose is to foster esprit de corps among work colleagues. Virtual meetings and videoconferencing can only go so far, even for organizations where everyone is in the same building.

“Companies are redefining their workplaces with increased emphasis placed on what kind of spaces will bring people to campus,” said Addington, whose design for the T-Mobile headquarters in Bellevue, Washington, includes bleacher steps.

Indeed, in the post-pandemic era when organizational leaders are searching for ways to lure workers back to the office, a bleacher staircase provides a way for employees to get to know each other, Leslie Suhr, an architect at Leo A Daly, told CoStar News.

When Suhr’s client, healthcare employment agency Triage Staffing, was developing its new headquarters office in Omaha, Nebraska, company leaders were shown photos of other offices, including one with a bleacher staircase.

“Triage saw one and said, ‘We want that,’” Suhr said. “They said, ‘We’re going to have all our weekly company meetings there.’”

Suhr also included a bleacher staircase in the interior design for financial technology company Carson Group’s Omaha headquarters.

Office Snapshots, an independent online database that follows trends in corporate interior design, is full of workspaces with bleacher staircases. Examples include a Studio Blitz design for marketing agency Wpromote near Los Angeles and a Perkins & Will-designed space for carpet manufacturer Interface in Atlanta. Design firms submit projects to Office Snapshots for inclusion in the database.

Software maker Workleap liked bleacher staircases so much that designers at Linebox Studio included two sets for the company’s Montreal office that opened in 2020.

Bleacher steps are popular outside North America, too, with offices in China, Poland, Singapore and Turkey among those featured on Office Snapshots.

And the steps keep coming. Global bank HSBC opened its new U.S. headquarters this month at The Spiral, a 264,000-square-foot office in New York that features a bleacher staircase on the fifth floor.

The concept preceded the pandemic. Gensler, the world’s largest architecture firm, installed a bleacher staircase in its Denver office in 2015 next to its front lobby desk.

Unlike exterior staircases or terracing that can be widened to enhance organically their natural surroundings by doubling as park benches, particularly when allowing a lingering view of a natural feature, interior bleachers spark discussion and draw attention partly because of their juxtaposition from a traditional gymnasium setting. In a way, interior bleacher steps fit in the category of amenities not historically found in offices that became popular after the pandemic, like espresso machines, pickleball courts and open bars, said Gensler's Addington.

“It doesn’t just exist for town hall-style meetings, it serves as a source of circulation and connection for the staff to many desired amenities like the pub, myriad food venues and an array of alternative work environments,” Addington said.

The staircases also play a practical role, said Bob Varga, an architect at SmithGroup. They’re a viable alternative to an auditorium for hosting large-group meetings.

“An auditorium is more of an old-school vibe,” Varga told CoStar News. “Bleacher stairs give a vibe that’s more like a social gathering.”

While an auditorium is more expensive to build than a bleacher staircase, the steps aren’t cheap, Varga said. In addition to the required building materials, a tenant must accept that they’re sacrificing square footage that could be used for a more practical use like desks, a break room or some storage.

Suhr and Varga declined to provide an estimated range for the cost of bleacher staircases.

Office tenants need to ask if the staircase is going to produce a return on the investment, said architecture critic Lamster. Colin Koop, a design partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, told Lamster that bleacher stairs don’t serve any purpose well.

“For large audiences, backless bleachers are uncomfortable almost immediately, leaving you aching for a proper seat,” Koop said. “Meanwhile, on a daily basis, people would much rather sit at reading tables, banquettes or lounge seating.”

Employers must accept that the bleacher staircase probably won’t be heavily used during a typical workday, Varga said.

“It’s not going to be used for people to eat lunch, because you have to put the food in your lap,” Varga said. “To have a conversation with someone, you have to sit sideways to talk.”

Organizations need a specific reason, like regular town hall meetings, for the steps to work the way they should, Suhr said.

“If you program it, they will come,” Suhr said, riffing on a line from the “Field of Dreams” movie, “If you build it, they will come.”

Lamster said bleacher steps can be challenging for some people.

“They are inaccessible and unwelcoming to anyone with mobility issues,” wrote Lamster. The stairs "effectively segregate those individuals from the rest of the public.”

It's misleading, however, to say that bleacher staircases in an office setting exclude anyone with a physical disability, said Brian Parker, head of the interior design studio at Cooper Carry.

“Regular stairs already exclude people with disabilities,” Parker told CoStar News. Someone with mobility issues can sit on the front row of a bleacher staircase, he said.

“That’s the best seat in the house,” Parker said.

Suhr said she and other designers at Leo A Day specifically tried to incorporate access for people with physical disabilities at offices the firm designed for Triage and Carson by placing the top row near elevators.

“You don’t want to leave anyone high and dry without being able to participate,” Suhr said.

In his column, Lamster conceded that the bleacher staircase does provide a memorable visual element for an organization.

“Their popularity is understandable,” Lamster wrote. “They look dramatic, signal an interest in fostering a sense of community — an essential goal for public institutions in the post-pandemic era — and satisfy two functions at once, turning circulation space into a place for public gathering.”

If designed correctly, the interior bleacher staircase can be beautiful, Suhr said. At Triage, the staircase is made from wide-plank hickory wood boards, complemented by polished concrete and neutral-colored carpet.

There’s still the issue of comfort.

No one can reasonably expect to have a La-Z-Boy recliner for an in-office meeting. But the throw cushions that are often used on bleacher steps are a long way from a plush sofa.

“They’re not intended for five-hour meetings, let’s be honest,” Suhr said. “Nobody can sit there for that long.”