Red Ventures selects Choate as Contractor for $90M campus expansion

Red Ventures selects Choate as Contractor for $90M campus expansion

Nov 6, 2015  | Civil engineering 

Red Ventures selects Choate as Contractor for $90M campus expansion
(Photo by: Choate Construction Company)

Marketing and technology firm Red Ventures broke ground Wednesday on a project that will double the size of its headquarters –and CEO Ric Elias is hoping the ceremony won’t be the company’s last.

“You never take it for granted,” said Elias, standing in front of the site of its planned new buildings. “This could truly be our last groundbreaking….This world is changing fast.”

“In many ways, what’s coming is hard,” said Elias, who said the firm will have to stay hungry and innovate in order to sustain growth.

Government officials heaped praise on Red Ventures, which has grown rapidly since it was founded in 2000 and now employs more than 2,200 at its Indian Land headquarters. The company has added to a growing boom on the southern edge of the Charlotte metro area in upstate South Carolina.

“I want to work at Red Ventures when I grow up,” said S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley. “This is a fantastic place.”

South Carolina has approved job development tax credits to help fund the project, Haley’s office said Wednesday, though the value of the credits was not disclosed. The state is also giving Lancaster County a $550,000 grant for road improvements, including expanding and extending S.C. 160, which will become the main entrance to the campus.

The company, which moved its headquarters from Charlotte to just south of the state line in 2009, announced recently that it has invested $15 million in a San Francisco-based mobile advertising company called Ampush. In May, Red Ventures bought marketing services firm Imagitas for $310 million.

Red Ventures also has offices on Louis Rose Place in the University City area, and in July leased 97,599 square feet at the nearby Cambridge Corporate Center.

The company’s expansion, called RV4, will add 300,000 square feet of space to its existing headquarters off Highway 521, south of Ballantyne. Comprised of three connected buildings, the $90 million addition will add space for 1,500 more employees, who Red Ventures hopes to hire in the next five to seven years.

The centerpiece of the new complex will be a six-story building that will include training rooms, a ballroom with capacity for 650 people, a 275-seat auditorium and a 90,000 square-foot sales center. A parking deck with 1,450 new spaces is planned, as is an outdoor amphitheater and on-site cafe. The parking deck and sales center are expected to be complete in late 2016, while the six-story building and training facilities are expected to be complete in the second quarter of 2017.

Overcash Demmitt is the architect on the project, and Choate Construction is the general contractor.

Via Choate Construction Company
Image,video ©: Choate Construction Company