Though Creative Bloc opened late last year at the corner of Eighth and Main streets downtown, the shared workspace for creative professionals celebrates its grand opening tonight with a reception for tenants, friends and other invited guests.
“It’s great,” says John Jackson, who invested more than $3 million over the past two-and-a-half years acquiring and renovating the building it into an 11,500-square foot shared workspace. “We’ve had great response and the place looks great so we’re excited about it.”
Jackson, who was honored last night by Business Report and Junior Achievement as Baton Rouge’s Young Businessperson of the Year, originally conceived the idea when looking for space for his growing video production company, Launch Media, which is having a separate celebration earlier today to mark its 10th year in business.
As originally envisioned, Creative Bloc was to have two office suites—one for Launch Media and one for a second small business tenant—as well as 10 workstations for independent professionals, and 15 membership spots for those who need occasional access to the benefits of a downtown office. Demand for the workstations was so strong, however, Jackson recently reconfigured the unoccupied office suite into additional workstations, several of which are still available for lease.
“A lot of creative people are small shops so it made more sense to accommodate them,” he says.
Musing over the past decade in business, Jackson says it’s hard to believe Launch Media has been around so long. As he looks to the next 10 years, he says the firm is beginning to branch outside of its home base and pursue a national clientele.
“We really are starting to push more out of Baton Rouge and starting to take what we feel is our unique approach to multi-national, larger companies,” he says. “We’re kind of looking beyond Louisiana and beyond the region. That’s where we feel the growth is.” Read more about Jackson. —Stephanie Riegel
