SchoolMint will move into a temporary space in downtown Lafayette and could soon land a permanent home possibly later this month.
Company CEO Bryan MacDonald said the company will move into the first floor of the Lemoine building, 214 Jefferson St., and hopes to have employees working there on Feb. 1.
Employees are currently working remotely and have since moved out of the former Daily Advertiser building, which was sold to an owner who will lease it to Ochsner Lafayette General.
SchoolMint, the educational software company that moved to Lafayette from the San Francisco area in 2020, had been looking for a permanent home since its arrival and wanted to be downtown, MacDonald said.
“We want to be downtown and are big believers in downtown,” he said. “We looked at a number of options. We actually looked at the Dat Dog building. We looked at the Rock ‘n’ Bowl Building. When the pandemic got really gnarly and we weren’t sure about what our space needs were, we sort of tapped the brakes for a while.”
The 14,000-square-foot space is in the bottom floor of what was the old federal bankruptcy court building and will house 70 employees with plans to get to 110, MacDonald said. Many features of the courtroom remain after it closed years ago, including the judge’s bench and the witness box.
The company is also hoping to close on the purchase of a permanent home later this month, MacDonald said. It has a short list of final locations and is looking for a space similar in size downtown.
“We really want to find a space that fits us and fits our needs that we can really personalize and turn into a great headquarters,” he said. “The second thing is the opportunity to expand even further if necessary with another floor or another building.”
The news is the latest development downtown and the second significant employer to the area after CGI moved into the Versailles building, 102 Versailles Blvd. A group also recently bought the Dat Dog building at 201 Jefferson St. with plans to house a restaurant and lounge on the bottom floor with office spaces upstairs.
Read the rest of Adam Daigle’s article for The Acadiana Advocate
