January 23, 2006
Ad agency moving offices to RiverPlace
By Richard Breen
The first building in the second phase of RiverPlace will have the bounce agency as its lead tenant.
A local advertising agency is joining the exodus of office tenants
from the suburbs to downtown Greenville.
RiverPlace Development Inc. recently announced the bounce agency would
serve as lead tenant in a mixed-use building at the development. The
six-story, 130,000-square-foot building will be called bounce at RiverPlace.
The 50-person agency will occupy the building’s second floor.
The first floor will be dedicated to restaurant/retail, with the third
floor being occupied by a pair of residential design firms, Donald
A. Gardner Architects Inc. and Allora LLC.
Floors 4-6 will feature 27 condominiums, 15 of which are under contract, according to Bryan Blackwood of sales and marketing agent Coldwell Banker Caine Real Estate. The building is expected to be ready for occupancy by late spring of 2007.
The building is the first in phase two of RiverPlace, a three-phase project that is expected to stretch along the Reedy River and Camperdown Way from South Main Street to Academy Street. Phil Hughes, president of RiverPlace Development, says a goal for RiverPlace is to bring together a diverse mix of minds.
“I do think this group of creative architects and creative ad agency people is going to be dynamic and exciting,” he says. Developers also plan to dedicate river-level space to an artists’ colony.
The ad agency is currently leasing its longtime offices along South Pleasantburg Drive from former company executive Dean Anderson. The company decided to look for new offices when it changed its name to bounce from The Leslie Agency in 2005.
“We knew that downtown was definitely a destination we wanted to look into,” says Kara Dullea, a bounce vice president.
Several other businesses have left suburban offices in South Pleasantburg/Cleveland Street area in recent years. They include Elliott Davis LLC and suit-Construction Co. Hughes says newness often entices a business away from its longtime location.
“A lot of employers want the latest and greatest for their employees,” he
says.