SPT Architecture is ‘instilling new life’ in a prominent downtown building

UPDATED — SPT Architecture is simultaneously bringing new life to a well-known downtown space and bucking a growing workplace trend.

The firm is renovating the longtime bus station at 312 S. Broadway, which is just south of English, to be an expanded office for its 30 employees.

“This building has been a part of downtown for (more than) 60 years, and we’re really looking forward to instilling new life in it,” said co-owner Greg Tice. “You can’t find very many of them like that anymore.”

The floor of the building is made of cast-in-place concrete, meaning it was poured on site and is particularly sturdy. The building also does not have columns interfering with sight lines.

Tice and interior designer Gina Loomis said it makes for a great open space for being collaborative and creative.

Like a lot of companies, SPT Architecture sent the majority of its employees home for the first couple of months of the coronavirus outbreak.

“We just found that we lost a lot of collaboration opportunities,” Loomis said. “We feed off each other and are better designers when we’re all together working as a team.”

The new space is almost 5,000 square feet bigger than the firm’s existing 9,000 square feet.

“I know that’s kind of counter to what’s going on with a lot of people right now,” Tice said.

SPT Architecture has been in leased Old Town space at 121 N. Mead, where it’s been for almost 20 years.

“We’ve been downtown for 35 years,” Tice said. “We really love downtown. We want to be here.”

Ron Spangenberg and Randy Phillips started the firm in 1985.

Phillips is still a co-owner, as is Tice, Loomis, Rebecca Gates, Brad Teeter and Dave Wells, who is not the same Dave Wells who is a Key Construction co-owner.

“Yeah, we call him the good Dave Wells,” Tice said, laughing, of the SPT Architecture co-owner. Tice notes that Key Construction’s Wells says the same thing.

Spangenberg is no longer an owner, but Tice said he’s still considered a partner.

With the transition in ownership, Tice said it was a good time for a move, particularly to space the firm can own instead of lease.

“For us, we wanted to show an investment in the downtown area,” he said. “We want to be an integral part of what’s going on downtown.”

Tice said the firm considered several properties in Old Town, Delano and north and south of Douglas.

“We just saw this as an opportunity to go into an area that’s improving.”

He cited Fidelity Bank’s major expansion nearby at Main and English.

Just as SPT Architecture has watched Old Town flourish over the last couple of decades, Tice said he wants to see the same thing happen around the old bus station.

‘Such a vibrant space’

The property where SPT Architecture is moving has been home to bus companies, including Greyhound most recently. The building has been vacant since the company left the space in 2017.

Renovation work will start next spring and will include an updated exterior along Broadway.

“We like the exposure that being on Broadway gives,” Tice said.

For him, the most exciting part of the two-story building is its openness and clerestory windows that flood the space with natural light.

There’s also a walkway on the second level.

Tice said the space has an industrial look with exposed trusses in the roof and exposed concrete floors.

He said the firm’s Old Town lease ends in late 2021 but that it could move earlier if another business is interested in subleasing that space.

When the new building is ready, Loomis said initially there will 1,200 to 2,500 square feet available to lease to another company.

SPT Architecture is growing but probably won’t need the extra space for another five years or so.

Loomis said a bonus, particularly for clients, is covered parking — something of a rarity in downtown.

Tice credits help with the move from Fidelity Bank and broker Christi Royse at J.P. Weigand & Sons.

Tice said the idea behind the project is “to take something and give it new life” and also create a greater downtown presence for the firm along with an ideal place to work.

He said the new building will accomplish all of that.

“It’s just going to create such a vibrant space for us.”

This story was originally published July 23, 2020 at 4:47 AM.