“It”™s like the first day of school,” said Joseph Osborne, communications and brand marketing director at Mindspark Interactive Network Inc., a new tenant at i.park Hudson on the downtown Yonkers waterfront.
In a common area festooned with orange and blue balloons near the entrance to Mindspark”™s contemporary new headquarters, floor plans mounted on easels guided 160 employees to their desk locations on factory floors adapted for office use and mezzanines built beneath massive steel beams. It was their first day of work at the company”™s newly renovated 40,000-square-foot space at 29 Wells Ave., a landmark red brick industrial building in the former Otis Elevator Co. complex.
An operating business of IAC/InterActiveCorp, the publicly traded media and Internet company, Mindspark also has offices in the landmark Frank Gehry-designed IAC building in Manhattan”™s Chelsea neighborhood.
The headquarters designer, Roger Ferris + Partners L.L.C., an architectural firm based in Westport, Conn., maintained and left exposed the original brick walls and plank ceilings of the central Otis Elevator factory built in 1853. The build-out, by Pavarini Construction Co. Inc. of Stamford, Conn., restored oversized loft windows that overlook the Hudson River and Palisades. On this warm, sunny fall day, the views might have had new occupants longing to skip out on their first day of school or escape to Mindspark”™s new rooftop deck lounge.
Mindspark executives said the space leased from an affiliate of National Resources Inc., the Greenwich-based redeveloper of industrial properties for commercial and residential uses, will house several corporate functions, including marketing, product management, customer support, information technology and administration. It adjoins the Yonkers operations of Kawasaki Rail Car Inc., which paid $25.2 million this year to acquire its i.park Hudson space from the landlord.
Timed with the company”™s Nov. 18 move, Mindspark, a developer of software applications, launched its new website and a new company logo, Osborne said. Previously marketing itself as a vendor of “digital snacks,” said Osborne, “We basically just want to be more straightforward with our brand.”
Mindspark employees have designed, developed and marketed more than 70 applications. Among the company”™s currently popular apps are Television Fanatic, Gaming Wonderland, Weather Whiskers, Daily Bible and Maps Galaxy.
Since August 2006, Mindspark leased office space in the Gateway Building at 1 N. Lexington Ave. in downtown White Plains. All 160 employees in Yonkers were relocated from the White Plains office, which was 5,000 square feet smaller than the new headquarters, Osborne said.
“This is more indicative of who we are as a company,” he said of the open, well-lit and sleekly designed space in Yonkers. “We”™re innovative, young, fresh.”
Joey Levin, CEO of IAC Search & Applications, a division of IAC that includes Mindspark, in a press release said the “fantastically restored” headquarters space will be “the perfect post for what will allow considerably more creative thinking, efficiency and collaboration across teams. We look forward to this next phase as we continue to change the digital landscape by creating innovative user experiences through our digital applications.”
The 24-acre technology and office site houses a wide spectrum of businesses in sectors ranging from technology, education, biotechnology, local government and industrial.
Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano in a press release said the city is proud that “a cutting-edge tech company with some of the leading brands on the Web chose to relocate its corporate headquarters and a significant amount of jobs to the heart of Yonkers”™ downtown waterfront.”
The Mindspark office overlooks the former Yonkers City Jail, a 10,000-square-foot, 87-year-old building which Rand Commercial Services has been marketing for the city. Spano said “a husband and wife team,” one a “renowned” art collector and the other an artist, have bought the building.
As the Business Journal went to press, city officials had scheduled a press conference to announce the vacated jail”™s new owners and their plans for its use.
