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Out of the Box

Chicago
Out of the Box
Next time you're in the freezer aisle, ask yourself if it'd be a good spot for a corner office. Englewood Construction (which specializes in retail build-outs), has turned a family owned grocery store into its new HQ in downtown Lemont.
 
Englewood Office
The 12-year-old company purchased the 14k SF  store for less in mortgage payment than it would have paid in rent at its former Schiller Park  industrial office building. Englewood's Kim Sawyer,Bill Di Santo, and Chuck Taylor showed us around their new digs on Monday. Each employee picked their office wall colors from a palette based on a painting of a Mandarin duck  that Chuck hung in the reception area, giving the space a   Prairie style color and feel. Englewood is trying to earn LEED cert  for the space; it reused all the office furniture from its former space and is a two-minute walk from the  Metra to downtown  Chicago. They even cut the old conference table into two smaller tables, one for their war room where proposals are pitched and one for a small conference room.
Englewood Construction's Bill Di Santo
Here's Bill in his new office. Englewood employees did all of the carpentry themselves from  locally sourced materials. While Englewood has built many stores on Michigan Ave, including the new American Girl at WaterTower Place and Zara, about 65% of its business is out-of-state, so being downtown wasn't essential for the company's 18 office employees. Right now, it's working on stores for Michael Hill  and American Girl throughout the country.
EnglewoodOffice Bar
This  bar  proved to be the most popular new addition at the company holiday party two weeks ago. An in-house gym complete with shower, and a kitchen with stovetop, oven, and full-sized dishwasher round out the building's amenities. Chuck says he can hardly believe the office had check-out lines in it just four months ago, when Englewood bought the property from a family owner who had  closed the store more than two years ago.