By: Deborah Johnson Wood
When the owners of Battery Studio, Fulvew Productions, Visual Alchemy, Hunter Media Group, and Recoil Magazine decided to get an office together, they thought they'd, well, get an office together. Instead, they've turned a 3,200-square-foot, four-bedroom apartment in the west side's American Seating Park into space that allows them to collaborate on media projects for clients.
"It doesn't feel like an apartment at all," says Shawn Melton, owner of Battery Studio, a product design firm. "We're using the bedrooms as office space, and the main room is my company and a conference area. We may add a ping-pong table—the space is large enough to put whatever we want in here."
The fourth-floor office features a wall of windows overlooking a landscaped courtyard. The natural light floods the space, highlighting cherry woodwork and cabinetry. Twelve-foot ceilings and exposed cement columns are reminders of the building's previous life as a furniture factory.
American Seating Park has an amphitheater where Melton says the "video guys" are anxious to show some of the movies they've created. He says the new workspace allows them to open the doors of their offices to collaborate, or close them to work in private.
"It's really energizing to work with people who are passionate about what they're doing," Melton says. "I can show my work to these guys and get an honest critique; it only makes my work better before I show it to a client."
Chris Beckering of Grubb & Ellis Paramount Commerce brokered the transaction.
Source: Shawn Melton, Battery Studio
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Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth. She can be contacted at [email protected].
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