Software development company Laserfiche has opened its new headquarters in Long Beach, a project by Long Beach-based Studio One Eleven and Long Beach-based RDC Interiors. It is the first new building in the Bixby Knolls neighborhood in 40 years, according to its architect.
The 100,000-square-foot-plus property, those involved in its development agree, will work well in a hybrid work environment and is a promising indicator of Long Beach’s growing office market.
Chris Wacker, chief executive of Laserfiche, said the company decided to build a new headquarters building because it was “really short on space” at its old office location.
“We were short on parking spaces, we were short on floor space to put desks, so we looked to expand our campus in the area and…bought about 9-10 properties, parcels on our present location and began construction, using local developers, architects and general contractors,” he said.
Of the company’s 425 employees, 320 are in Long Beach. And that number is growing.
In addition to having enough space for Laserfiche’s workforce, Wacker said the new project, which has signage visible from the 405 Freeway, was a great way to “make a statement.”
Construction was completed on the project earlier this year, and the building is now occupied.
The interiors have open workspaces for collaboration, as well as conference spaces. An indoor-outdoor cafeteria is part of the mix.
“The thinking behind the interiors anticipated an evolving work environment in keeping with the firm’s values,” Katy Wise, an interior project architect and associate at RDC, said in a statement. “The space addresses the many ways that team members work today, with areas designated for team collaboration or solitude and places that are optimized to simplify communication between team members who are in the office with those who are working remotely.”
Wacker called the space “extremely functional and useful in a hybrid environment.”
“We have a lot of meeting areas and with conference rooms that we have many are designed for both in-person and virtual meetings,” he said. “It’s a very attractive environment, it’s a nice place to collaborate. It is a location that people want to come to, that our staff wants to come to, yet for those that prefer to work independently, it meets their needs also.”
Wacker said remaining in Long Beach was also important to the company.
“The high-tech community is growing in Long Beach,” he said. “There are other technology companies, and it allows us to recruit from the north Santa Monica area and also from Orange County. Its location between those two areas is very convenient.”
And those involved agree that the new headquarters could convince others to call Long Beach home.
“The City of Long Beach is proud to call Laserfiche a partner in driving tech and enterprise growth,” Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia said in a statement. “This new Laserfiche headquarters symbolizes the innovative spirit of our city.”
Michael Bohn, senior principal for Studio One Eleven, said the Bixby Knolls area was popular in the 1950s and 1960s, when a lot of interesting projects were initially built in the area , and added that it is home to a lot of “older, cool buildings that have gotten really attractive to creators.”
It hadn’t seen a lot of new projects until the Laserfiche property, however, which Bohn said is the “first brand new building…in almost 40 years. It’s the last mark that this corridor has arrived again.”
“This is going to be a great, iconic building for our city,” he added.
