Remote software company LogMeIn currently has 100 job openings and its new six-story headquarters in Boston’s Fort Point neighborhood was designed with recruitment in mind.
Perks like a basement-level coffee bar, cafe and basketball court point to LogMeIn’s emphasis on providing an invigorating work environment.
Executives work alongside rank-and-file employees in the open floor plan offices, while breakout rooms and phone rooms surround the workspace. Architectural designs opened up the core of the building with construction of a new central staircase, part of a strategy to encourage “accidental collaboration” between employees of different departments, said Paul Schauder, LogMeIn’s vice president of brand strategy.
“As people walk through the building, you get an interesting mix. You might bump into a product person you haven’t seen in a day or two,” Schauder said. “We try to create spaces where you bump into a person and say, ‘I had this idea about X, Y and Z.’”
The same principle applies to the inclusion of kitchenettes and cafe-style seating on each floor. Alongside the basement-level coffee bar, a former loading dock is being transformed into an outdoor patio that will open this spring.
Other group seating areas are decked out in styles resembling a hunting lodge, an Asian-themed lounge and a midcentury living room. The latter lacks only the deep shag carpeting that was scotched as a potential fire code violation.
In 2013, LogMeIn moved from suburban Woburn to 320 Summer St. in Fort Point. As its local workforce approached 400 employees, it looked close to home for growth. Across the street, property owners Synergy Investments and DivcoWest were restoring a brick-and-beam warehouse into office space. Waltham-based Commodore Builders began work at the Fort Point warehouse space in January 2014, shortly after the building was gutted in an eight-alarm fire. Commodore rebuilt multiple floors replicating the original building materials, including Southern yellow pine floors. “We had to chase all over the country to find that,” said Robert McAuliff, a Commodore vice president.
The strategy paid off in the fall when LogMeIn signed a 12.4-year lease for 117,000 square feet, shortly after Boston city councilors approved a $2.5 million, 13-year tax break in exchange for the company’s commitment to hire an additional 450 employees.
BH + Architects was the architect for the base building and SGA of Boston represented LogMeIn. Throughout the facility, elements of the building’s industrial heritage were retained. Century-old pine timbers that were removed to make way for the central staircase were recycled into a massive table in the main conference room.
“Instead of putting out blankets and shirts and pants, we’re putting out bytes of software,” Schauder said. “But it’s still essential to the commercial base here in Fort Point.”
To take a video tour of LogMeIn’s new headquarters, click here.
