Pure Visibility Co-founder and president Linda Girard (left) and COO Dunrie Greiling in their new office under construction on the third floor of the Kerrytown Market.
Melanie Maxwell | AnnArbor.com
The company has signed a lease to move into Menlo Innovations' old space in Kerrytown, with LLamasoft already signed to take over Pure Visibility vacated floor of the First National Bank building on South Main Street.
Pure Visibility will move into the 5,850-square-foot “Kerrytown Menlo Innovation Space” at 415 N. Fifth Ave. once painting and minor renovations are completed in mid-to-late November.
“We’re very excited about moving into Kerrytown. It’s going to be great for our company,” Pure Visibility co-founder and president Linda Girard said.
“ There are too many walls in the space we have now, we wanted to break down those walls and follow in the footsteps of Menlo into a collaborate environment that would inspire change and growth.”
The idea of open office environments has been gaining traction in companies across the country, with Menlo and CEO Rich Sheridan as major proponents of the format that encourages working in pairs as well as larger groups. Menlo left the space in late 2011 to create the “Menlo Software Factory” in the former Tally Hall building now known as The Offices at Liberty Square.
While Menlo Innovations builds software solutions for clients, Pure Visibility works with customers to navigate what can often be a confusing world of Web-based marketing. The company, founded in 2005 by Girard and Catherine Juon, reported in July that it had experienced 25 percent year-over-year growth.
Girard said that while her company would be moving into a space that was about equal size to the one they are leaving, the space is used more efficiently and will be a better working environment.
“In our current offices there are a lot of hallways and walking spaces, the new space is better utilized,” she said.
“The environment is also extremely important. It’s an environment that inspires creativity and more human interaction. There’s the ability to work outside, or in the winter to be able to go down and grab a coffee from Sweetwaters without having to leave the building.”
While Pure Visibility has remained profitable, there is no hiring spree planned as the company moves to its new location, Girard said. Right now, the company is hiring a sales director, and she expects that the 20-person Internet marketing firm will grow organically as revenues increase.
Pure Visibility has been on the fifth floor of the First National Bank building since 2007 and their move to Kerrytown makes way for LLamasoft, a rapidly growing supply chain software company to expand its space in the building to 2 1/2 floors in addition to office space on East Liberty Street.
Patrich Jett, of Colliers International, represented Pure Visibility in the deal for the space owned by Joe O’Neal and managed by Karen Farmer. He said the space the company selected matched all of the criteria they had set out to find, including exposed brick, hardwood floors and, of course, open and collaborative space.
“There aren’t as many [office locations] as you would think that are available,” Jett said.
“To find that type of space downtown can be very challenging. It’s something that a lot of IT and tech companies look for to attract talent and create the types of spaces where they can have all of their minds in one place. Most of that kind of space has already been absorbed by companies and there is not a lot of it just sitting out there.”
While Girard is excited to for her company to move into its new home, she couldn’t help but look even further into the future.
“Our goal is to outgrow the space, just like Menlo did,” she said.
Ben Freed covers business for AnnArbor.com. Reach him at 734-623-2528 or email him at benfreed@annarbor.com. Follow him on twitter @BFreedinA2