The Bukoswki brothers, Brock and Brant, have always tried to make their company a fun place to work – every day is casual Friday and employees play games during breaks, such as washers tournaments in the parking lot.
So when I heard that VA Mortgage Center.com plans to move into the vacant building on Grindstone Parkway that formerly housed the Ice Chalet and the Ice Chalet Antique Mall, I had to ask Brock lightheartedly: Are you going to bring back ice skating?
No, he said, but renovating the space — 43,000-square-foot building on a 6.3 acre site near U.S. 63 — into offices will be a big job. Brock said they were unsuccessful in finding a suitable new building with 30,000 square feet or more of office space. “We didn’t want to do a remodel,” he said.
The company has simply outgrown its offices near the Forum Boulevard-Chapel Hill Road intersection. There are now 250 employees working in the main office on Chapel Plaza Court and in two satellite offices in the Peachtree Plaza area.
The closing is scheduled to take place in two months, and it will take another nine to 12 months to renovate the building.
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Like a migrating bird, the U.S. Census Bureau is coming back to roost at Parkade Plaza. The agency has leased a customized 6,000-square-foot space in the center on Business Loop 70 West. The Parkade Center also housed the Census Bureau in 1999.
Parkade manager Ben Gakinya says construction is scheduled to be finished Aug. 5 and the government agency plans to move into the space in mid-August.
The Census Bureau will have 52 employees in Columbia working to gather data for the census, which the federal government does every 10 years.
Categories: Business, Local Issues, New Business.
