Burnham told the assembled civil servants “It’s not just a new office – through this place power is going to flow, energy is going to flow.”
He added: “It’s sending a message to everyone here that we’ve got support of the government from the very top – it’s a very powerful message. The political commitment is there.”
Other ministers due for meetings at the Manchester hub on Friday include Angela Rayner, Pat McFadden, Jonathan Reynolds, Yvette Cooper, Angela Eagle, Heidi Alexander and Miatta Fahnbulleh.
Insisting the move would not be short-lived, Burnham said No 10 North was not just for north-west England but for every region and nation of the UK.
“There’ll be many voices out there, I can hear them all already, often London based, but not exclusively… They like to say, ‘Oh, this will just be the new levelling up, or another sort of short-lived gimmick’, and they’ll also say ‘What’s it going to cost?'”
He continued: “What does it cost for everybody to troop down to London every time there’s a meeting when you need to make an argument about something?
“What does that cost? So actually, isn’t it better that we have a North Pole that balances the South Pole of our country, where power will always be concentrated?
“At least it creates that sense of a more balanced country, and that big things can be done from here.”
Burnham will chair a meeting of the National Economic Council, a cabinet committee first launched in 2008 to respond to economic challenges around the UK.
The meeting will bring together senior ministers and regional mayors to “put devolution at the centre of the government’s mission to make Britain better”.
Strategic decisions about devolution and local economic growth will shift from the Treasury and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to No 10 North, although both departments will have input in these areas.
Asked whether Burnham’s messaging was too focused on the north of England, Rayner told BBC Breakfast people understood No 10 North was about driving growth in every postcode across the UK.
Burnham’s first day as prime minister in No 10 North will also include talks with business leaders, including representatives of the Federation of Small Business, the Confederation of British Industry and the British Chambers of Commerce, about how to generate growth and investment.
Labour wants to create a plan that would pull from existing devolution strategy and local growth policy, to allow civil servants, mayors, councils and businesses to work together more closely.
Burnham’s first week in power has seen him make a series of interventions aimed at easing the cost of living, including announcing a 20% cut in business rates for pubs, social clubs and live music venues from April next year.
However, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has criticised his ambitions for being “too small”.
Speaking on Thursday, she urged him to tackle high energy costs for businesses as well as a gap in defence funding.
“When you are mayor of Manchester, you are handed a big pot of someone else’s money, and you decide where to spend it,” she said.
“I’m sure this is great fun. It can make you very popular. But it is not the same as being prime minister.
“Andy Burnham needs to do better. He is behaving like he’s still the mayor of Manchester. He is now the prime minister of the United Kingdom, he needs to start acting like it.”
Liberal Democrat MP Calum Miller said Burnham needs to show that No 10 North is “more than just a convenient Friday working from home base for him and other Manchester MPs”.
“I know he’s been out of the House of Commons for a long time, but he’ll probably be reminded that many of us go back to our constituencies on a Friday,” he told broadcasters.
“So he needs to demonstrate it’s more than just that and that this represents something for the whole country – that rural and coastal communities that have been really left behind are actually part of his plan for decentralisation.”
Miller said this includes the ability for local areas to “raise their own funding and spend it in ways that will benefit them”.
Miller earlier said the Lib Dems have “always believed strongly that power should be held close to people”, adding: “We will welcome anything that moves in that direction.”
No 10 North will operate out of Heron House in central Manchester, in the same building which houses offices for the intelligence service GCHQ.
The prime minister is expecting to work from No 10 North every week, and specialist police officers have already been seen guarding the building.
It is likely that the longer term base for No 10 North will be at a new government site under construction in the city’s Ancoats area. It is not due for completion until 2032.
Successive governments have sought to move more civil servants out of London and last year a target was set to cut the number of roles in the capital by 12,000.
According to the most recent figures, 19.6% of civil servants are based in London and the number has been gradually decreasing for the past four years.
Of civil servants outside London the percentage in senior roles stands at 13.5%, compared with 34.7% of civil servants in the capital.
Whitehall officials willing to move to Manchester have been told they will be offered relocation packages, the BBC understands.