Medallion's corporate office is recycled boat building facility in Manatee
WHITFIELD -- Ask home- builder Carlos Beruff to put into perspective the recent total tear-out remodel of his company's new headquarters building, he'll tell you the project grew out of his pragmatic side.
Two years ago, the Medallion Home president and founder bought the 35,000-square-foot concrete and steel building, the former headquarters for Wellcraft Boats on Whitfield Avenue, for $523,000. It was a steal, even if the building had sat empty and in some disrepair for the better part of a decade.
Six times larger than Medallion's offices at the time, the building gave the Bradenton homebuilder more room for its growing workforce, a showplace for its design center and plenty of space left over to rent out high-end office space to offset Beruff's investment.
To buy down monthly bills even further, Beruff built photovoltaic solar panels onto the roof to supply much of the building's electricity and installed low-power LED lighting in almost every fixture.
It's all very practical, right down to the solar-powered Steinway player baby grand piano in the lobby.
"I sold my house and I didn't have room for it, so I put it here," Beruff said.
Medallion is one of several local companies to follow the reuse-remodel trend when it comes to opening new corporate offices. In June, direct marketer It Works! moved into a former, mutli-level shopping center in Palmetto that it transformed into an elaborate new headquarters. Last spring, Ringling Bros. & Barnum and Bailey Circus parent company Feld Entertainment began moving into a 600,000-square-foot Palmetto facility built by technology giant Siemens.
This trend, known as adaptive reuse, is popular where existing building stock is available. Rick Fawley, a principal with Lakewood Ranch architecture firm Fawley Bryant, said renovating an old building for a new purpose is a cost-effective way of getting office space that feels like something brand new.
"We see it a lot," he said. "Minimal renovations are more affordable to do than to start out with a fresh, clean slate."
In Medallion's case, the move to 1651 Whitfield Ave. came as the housing market was starting to improve. The company had run out of room for its 45 office-based employees. Beruff looked at the old Wellcraft building and knew he could make it work, even if he had to strip it down to its structural members. Left behind when Wellcraft closed its Manatee County operations about a decade ago, the building needed some work, including remediation for water that had leaked onto floors and walls over the years.
"It had good bones," he said. "If a building has
that, you can invest money into it."
Part way into the project in early 2014, Beruff said the cost of the remodel would likely exceed a $975,000 mortgage he took out on the building.
As of year's end, the only work left to complete is cosmetic work on ceilings, walls and floors in about 16,000 square feet Medallion will lease sometime in 2015. The rest of the 25-year-old building looks as though it was built yesterday. Beruff replaced nearly all the wallboard and floors, and completely replaced the building's air-conditioning system.
On the roof, 6,900 square feet of solar panels are rated to produce 100 kilowatts of electricity, enough to power up to 30 homes. So far this year, the panels have been able to provide most of the power needed to run the air conditioning and the lights for Medallion. In October, the building's electric bill was $1,100. Last year, the company paid $1,300 at its much smaller, previous corporate office building at 2212 58th Ave. E.
Most important to Medallion's business model is its expanded design center. Built with a complete, working designer kitchen and displaying hundreds of samples of flooring, tile, counter tops and other finishes for the company's homes, the center represents an escalation in home builders' efforts to appeal to more sophisticated home buyer tastes.
"The buyer today demands more variety than 20 years ago," Beruff said.
And while Medallion is not the only local builder with new offices -- Lakewood Ranch-based Neal Communities moved into new digs two years ago -- the Whitfield company is the only one with a dock and a boat launch. Wellcraft previously built and maintained a testing pond behind the building, which Beruff had cleaned. He also had a new deck built over the water, from which a kayak could easily be launched for a lunchtime paddle.
The remodeling work on the building was completed by a number of contractors, including McDonough Plumbing, another Whitfield area business.
Matt M. Johnson, Herald business reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7027, or on Twitter @MattAtBradenton.
This story was originally published December 22, 2014 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Medallion's corporate office is recycled boat building facility in Manatee ."