CROP Creative Media will relocate from the Baymeadows area to Kings Avenue, joining the San Marco-area corridor that has sprouted other building renovations near the Downtown Southbank of the St. Johns River.
“On that street, everything is coming back so nicely,” said CROP majority owner Jennifer Adams.
Jacksonville-based CROP Creative Media will move by Sept. 30 from its 7807 Baymeadows Road E. offices into the former Southside Blueprint site at 1024 Kings Ave. Contractor Allen Stevens bought the building in January for $375,000 and is renovating it to CROP Creative Media’s specifications.
Southside Blueprint moved nearby at 1889 Southampton Road.
Adams and the CROP Creative Media team hadn’t expected to move. She and co-owner and business partner Bill Scheerer started the company in February 2012 and they intended to grow slowly. The four-person team moved into the Baymeadows offices of a former architect on a three-year lease.
Yet, several events changed those plans, specifically that the Baymeadows building was sold and the buyer is allowing CROP Creative Media to stay until Sept. 30.
In addition, the firm has grown to a team of nine, meaning that space became a challenge.
CROP Creative Media leases about 2,700 square feet now and looked for 5,000 square feet at several locations. None quite worked.
When Stevens bought the roughly 7,700-square-foot Southside Blueprint building from Southside Blueprint Service Inc., the plans fell into place.
CROP Creative Media will almost double in space by moving into 5,000 square feet and will still have another 1,150 square feet for a large studio and 1,550 square feet for storage and expansion. It has a five-year lease with three-year extension options.
“The best part is him allowing us to design the space,” Adams said of Stevens. “It will look and feel like our property.”
Group 4 Design Inc. is designing the space, which will include two main edit suites that accommodate clients to participate; two graphics suites; a sound design suite and an audio-recording booth; offices, a conference room, a reception area, a café/kitchen and the 1,150-square-foot studio.
There also are bay doors and a small courtyard. The structure, built in 1959, was a gas station years ago, Adams said.
“The goal is to make it exciting for the clients,” she said. “We’re not a widget company. It’s art.”
Stevens is president of Dav-Lin Interior Contractors Inc., which is handling the renovations.
The company will reuse its existing furniture and supplement as needed.
Scheerer said the move takes the company closer to some of its clients. A perk is that it also is near San Marco restaurants.
The address also is near the Kings Avenue parking garage, a Skyway station and the Southbank Riverwalk and, when it starts again, the water taxi service.
CROP Creative Media is a full-service video production and post-production company that works with advertising agencies, businesses, and nonprofit organizations. It specializes in TV commercials, corporate media, web content and documentaries.
Adams said team members have worked together on projects and in other firms for years before coming together as CROP Creative Media, making the firm seem older than it is.
Adams has more than two decades of experience as a writer, director and video producer. Scheerer is a video editor with more than two decades of industry experience.
“I never dreamed in 2½ years we would be in this position,” Adams said.
(904) 356-2466