Offbeat site gives home to startups

It is, without a doubt, Augusta's quirkiest office building.

The angular 8,000-square-foot office in the center of the 600 block of Broad Street – which noted architect I.M. Pei dubbed "Chamber Pavilion" when it opened in 1978 – is as impractical as it is captivating.

"It is striking and interesting, but strange, too," building manager Charles Murdorf said. "The offices are all triangular due to the walls."

Which is why the Augusta Metro Chamber of Commerce left the postmodern structure in 2010 to find more "traditional" office space, first at 701 Greene St. and later to the ground floor of 1 10th St., the mid-rise building that also houses the Morris Museum of Art.

But Murdorf's organization, the nonprofit Augusta Regional Collaboration initiative, has found a way during the past two years to turn the once neglected two-story landmark into an incubator for budding entrepreneurs and artists.

Making the best of the building's peculiar layout, the collaborative was able to turn the second floor into an office suite ranging from 90-square-foot spaces at $125 a month up to 1,000-square-foot spaces that go to $1,000 a month.

"The idea is, once a person starts a business, they start out in a 90 square foot and then move up to the 210 square foot, and then the 300, then the 390s and then 1,000," said Murdorf, a former Army intelligence analyst who moved to Augusta in 2008. "It's a great location because it's on Broad Street and it's not nearly as expensive as some of the other locations."

For example, space at the tech-focused incubator just four blocks away, theClubhou.se, starts at $500 a month. And the co-working concept recently announced on Greene Street by Atlanta-based SharedSpace mainly targets individuals who mostly need just a desk and a broadband connection.

The 600 Broad building's first- and second-floor gallery acts as an artistic incubator, giving the city's creative class a low-cost space in which to display and sell their work, helping make lower Broad Street one piece of the "four-corner" strategy developed by the group's founders: New York-based economic developer Matthew Kwatinetz and former Augusta Mayor Deke Copenhaver.

Murdorf calls lower Broad Street the "cultural district." The other three corners involve the "mill district" near the long-idle King and Sibley mills; creating market-rate housing nodes in the Laney-Walker district, such as the 221-unit Foundry Place; and extending the booming health care and downtown university district.

The city of Augusta kicked in more than $100,000 for renovations and mold remediation at the city-owned building, while Starbucks donated $45,000 and numerous employees to bring 600 Broad St. up to code.

The first floor is dedicated community space, where organizations such as the Greater Augusta Black Chamber of Commerce hold meetings. The room also can be rented for everything from "birthdays to graduation parties," Murdorf said.

The second-floor incubator houses several traditional startup businesses, including a construction company, a home health care consultant and a few fledgling tech companies.

One of those startup companies is Augusta-based GollyGood software. The website development firm simply needed a couple of workspaces to help grow the company, which creates everything from basic blog sites and simple web pages to large online forums and corporate sites.

Its two co-owners, Kelly Beck and Jonathan DeLagle, previously worked for Morris Digital Works, a division of Augusta-based Morris Communications. They were on the team that developed Savannah Now, a website owned by the Savannah Morning News.

Beck said the price for the two offices is "super reasonable" and fits their current needs.

"We're both locals trying to do some local stuff," Beck said. "We didn't need class-A office space. We're not there yet. It's been a good place to get started, a good incubation space."