The digital marketing agency Resource was looking for a blank slate it could turn into “the office of the future,” said Kelly Mooney, CEO of the Columbus-based firm.
It has found it in the 12-story, $50 million mixed-use project being built by the Daimler Group and Kaufman Development at 250 S. High St. The site is just south of Columbus Commons and will connect with the 3,600-space parking garage on Rich Street.
Resource is the first announced tenant for the project, which includes retail space on the ground floor, four floors of office space and seven floors of upscale apartments.
Groundbreaking on the 250 High project is slated for December, with a completion date of April 2015.
“We started talking with Resource about six months ago and pitched them on our vision of the project,” said Bob White Jr., president of Daimler.
What Mooney and Resource liked was the opportunity to “start with a fresh space that we could design from scratch,” she said.
Resource’s headquarters are at 343 N. Front St. in the Arena District, a 44,000-square-foot space in a 1915 building owned by Nationwide Realty Investors. The company also has smaller spaces next door and in Grandview Heights, as well as smaller offices in San Francisco, Chicago and Cincinnati.
Founded in 1981, Resource has clients that include Victoria’s Secret, CVS and Wendy’s.
The company will occupy 60,000 square feet of office space at 250 High, including two entire floors and part of a third. Resource has about 375 employees, including 300 in its Columbus and Grandview offices.
Resource’s dream office will include smaller work spaces but more meeting rooms.
“We’re seeing a shift in our need for large and flexible collaboration space,” Mooney said.
Resource is a perfect tenant for 250 High, said Guy Worley, CEO of Capital South, which owns and operates Columbus Commons and will sell the land where the project is located to Daimler/Kaufman.
“They are a very logical anchor tenant,” he said. “This whole neighborhood is coming together, and many of the residents are young professionals who want to walk to work.”
The urban setting and increased retail and residential development in and around Columbus Commons were what attracted Resource.
“We have a lot of young professionals in their 20s and 30s and some in their 40s looking for the urban lifestyle,” Mooney said. “We were looking for the ability to participate in bike programs, walk to events and live close to the office.”