GARFIELD PARK — An office complex housing four small businesses opened this week in Garfield Park, providing transit-friendly working spaces with the support of a city grant.
Business owners Micah Taylor and Tom Livings joined city officials Thursday to cut the ribbon on new office complex at 2811 W. Fulton St., where they converted an old gear factory into a modern working space.
“We’re glad that we were able to take this 100-year-old building and revitalize it,” Taylor, founder and president of Chicago Printworks and Direction Tour Marketing, said at the ribbon cutting. “It was here with the windows all bricked up for far too long, and to be able to make such a significant impact on a busy corner meant a whole lot to us. We hope that we can bring our support and expertise to the neighborhood.”
Taylor and Livings moved in their four companies: Chicago Printworks, Direction Tour Marketing, Studio inHaus and Flight Fx. Livings owns the latter two companies.
The duo connected in 2014 as parents at the same school. They then shared an office space during the pandemic in Taylor’s previous West Loop office at 1550 W. Carroll Ave., but increasing rent and a need for more office space led the two to look elsewhere.
Their new office building is a 5,700-square-foot, single-story office space that needed $2 million of renovations. The space was most recently occupied by Overton Chicago Gear before being acquired three years ago by Taylor and Livings.
Funding for this development includes $250,000 from a 2023 Equitable Transit-Oriented Development grant provided by the city. Launched by former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, the grant is meant to increase the number public transit-accessible developments.
“One of the most important factors for us finding a location anywhere in the city when we were looking was proximity to public transportation,” Taylor said. “A large majority of both of our companies rely heavily on public transportation. It is integral to how we do business, not only for our staff but our customers as well.”
The building is on the corner of North California Avenue next to a No. 94 California bus stop and two blocks from the California Green Line stop.
The companies operating out of the office offer a variety of services. Direction Tour Marketing, founded in 1999 by Taylor, distributes posters and flyers for events as well as marketing services. Specializing in physical prints, Taylor founded Chicago Printworks in 2010 to offer in-house printing, as those services were previously outsourced.
Livings founded Studio inHaus in 2009 alongside his wife, Laarmi Livings, to provide 3D animation, renderings, visual tours and any other imaging that developers or architects may need. As business slowed down during the pandemic, Livings and his team ventured into simulation development by creating aircraft simulation design firm Flight FX in 2021.
The company made an aircraft as add-on downloadable content for 2020 Microsoft Flight Simulator, the popular computer game. The aircraft, a Cirrus Vision Jet, quickly became one of the highest selling add-ons for the simulator, placing in the top ten among thousands of downloadable content. Soon, Microsoft reached out to Livings.
“Microsoft bought that plane for us and commissioned us to build aircrafts for the base game itself,” Livings said. “They give us a plane to build, and then we would work with the manufacturer of the plane to bring it into the simulation.”
Currently, FlightFX is working with Microsoft to develop “Flight Simulator 2024,” scheduled to release Nov. 19.
As the two business owners settle into their new home in Garfield Park, they said their goal for the next phase of development is to grow their relationship with their new neighbors.
“We’ve always been in industrial areas where there really wasn’t a neighborhood residential component,” Taylor said. “It’s the first time where we’re coming into contact with residents who have a stake in the community and are part of the community, whereas before we were just another business. Moving here, we both agreed that a big part of what we wanted to do with the move is be able to have a long term commitment and be able to make a difference to the community.”
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