17-year-old design and engineering firm Sigma Design has officially christened its new location in downtown Vancouver.
The company hosted a recent open house soiree to showcase its new digs at 1714 Broadway, the former home of Don Lorentz Auto Care Center. The firm bought the 10,000-square-foot building in June and immediately hit the blueprints to transform it from auto garage to state-of-the-art design and engineering center.
According to John Schlottmann, Sigma’s business development manager, the new facility will be a “home away from home” for some 20 employees and a business that has been growing at a 100 percent annual clip for the last several years.
Schlottmann explained the building’s unorthodox design elements, starting with a rock wall that features a trio of climbing ropes dangling over a gleaming green and rust-colored concrete floor.
“We spend more waking hours with work than we do with our family,” Schlottmann said.
Circling a rotund staircase to an upstairs loft at the center of the building, Schlottmann stopped at the foosball table, where skid marks hint at past heated games.
“It’s a great release,” he said, adding that employees log three or four intense games daily.
From that loft, an indoor balcony overlooks engineering work centers, where cubicle walls exist only in Dilbert-imagined cartoon strips. The open space invites cross-disciple collaboration, Schlottmann said. Also on site: Milling machines and a tool lab, where designs for things like the plastic skin on a cell phone and other precisely engineered doodads are crafted.
From the corrugated steel siding and street-corner entrance redesign to the sliding and wood-paneled ceiling, it’s clear this was a costly remodel for Sigma. Doug Hill, vice president of operations, admitted as much, but stopped short of saying how much the firm spent.
“It’s just a secret,” Hill said.
Even so, a November city of Vancouver building permit estimated the remodel would log in at $771,000.
What isn’t a secret is that the company wanted to stay in Vancouver, home to a number of employees who bike to work, stroll through the downtown shops and work with clients that range from footwear manufacturers to medical equipment manufacturers, with a chunk supporting manufacturing facilities in China.
“[We wanted] a place that’s inviting and fun and functional,” Schlottmann said.
