Allstate

The project

Allstate runs its European technology operations from Northern Ireland, with its headquarters at 10 Mays Meadow in Belfast, offices in Derry and Strabane, and a London office at 1 Dean Street. OKTO's relationship with Allstate began with the Belfast security and network operations centre in 2014 and has continued for over a decade, through the 2017 headquarters fit-out to the current programme of meeting room and town hall upgrades across every site.

The brief

Allstate's real estate team in Illinois and North Carolina wanted its AV standardised so that any employee walking into any room in any office would find the same equipment and the same way of using it. The client supplies its own video platform hardware, Neat bars and Poly codecs, and needed a partner who could design around it, meet the requirements of its IT and security teams, and deliver on programmes set from the United States.

What we delivered

The Belfast headquarters programme in 2016 and 2017 fitted out six floors: 75 displays across the open office, reception and technology cafe, around 45 huddle, meeting and video conference rooms, three training rooms that combine into one, a divisible town hall with 90-inch screens, and a video wall in reception. Since then OKTO has developed a set of standard room designs with Allstate that are now repeated at every site: four-person rooms with a 55-inch NEC display and a Neat Bar; six and eight-person rooms with 65-inch displays and Neat Bar Pro; boardrooms with dual displays, Poly cameras, Yamaha ceiling microphones and column speakers; and town halls with dual 85-inch displays, Dante audio processing, wireless microphones and Crestron video distribution.

What we delivered

The third floor of the Catalyst Building in Derry was fitted out to these designs in early 2024, followed by the new London office at 1 Dean Street in the autumn. The Belfast town hall was upgraded in 2025 with auto-tracking cameras, Shure ceiling array microphones, Q-SYS audio, assistive listening, and simple control plates that switch the room between open and divided modes from a contact on the moving wall.

The challenges

How we did it

The result

The client's decision-makers are in another time zone and their programmes are short. When Allstate's senior project manager asked for a preliminary number for London on a Friday, he had it that day and a formal proposal within three weeks. Equipment is delivered to Lisburn, racks are built and pre-commissioned there, and the designs are proven once and repeated. OKTO has delivered more than twenty separate Allstate projects since 2016 and holds service agreements at its sites.