Challenge description: Stirling Properties has renovated its downtown New Orleans headquarters on the Twenty second ground of the Pan-American Life Heart, remodeling uncooked vacant house into an 8,500-square-foot workplace with a hospitality-driven, residential-style really feel.

Location: 601 Poydras St., Twenty second ground, Pan-American Life Heart
Measurement: 8,500 rentable sq. ft
Proprietor: Stirling Properties
Architect: Atelier Design
Normal contractor: Pangea Development

Atelier Design proprietor Wendy Kerrigan has a phrase for what Stirling Properties created in its new downtown New Orleans headquarters: “resimercial.” The time period describes a mix of residential heat and industrial workplace design, shaping a extra hospitality-driven office contained in the agency’s newly renovated Twenty second-floor house within the Pan-American Life Heart at 601 Poydras St.

“I name it ‘resimercial’: a mix of residential heat and industrial operate, the place at occasions you are feeling much less such as you’re in a giant workplace constructing and extra such as you’ve stepped into an intimate residence,” mentioned Kerrigan. “If persons are going to spend that a lot time in an workplace, it’s vital to offer them areas that don’t really feel like they’re solely about work. That was actually the purpose right here — to create an workplace with hospitality and luxury constructed into it.”

Stirling Properties occupies about 8,500 rentable sq. ft inside the 28-story, 673,000-square-foot constructing, which Stirling has owned since 2010 and at the moment leases at about 83% occupancy. The build-out consists of non-public perimeter workplaces, convention rooms, a lobby, sitting space, kitchen and banquette, and a lounge-and-bar house.

“This house is our dedication to downtown New Orleans — and an announcement that this market can go toe-to-toe with Class A workplace anyplace within the nation,” mentioned John Woodard, Vice President for Stirling. Woodard leads the corporate’s New Orleans workplace on the Pan-American Life Heart.

Kerrigan’s Atelier Design was the lead architect and Metairie-based Pangea Development was the overall contractor. Pangea Development accomplished the build-out in about 120 to 140 days, ranging from uncooked, slab-to-slab house with nothing in place.

“I’ve been doing this for greater than 25 years, and so far as tenant renovations go, this is among the premier areas I’ve labored on,” mentioned Mark Silva, proprietor of Pangea Development, who was joined on the venture by his superintendent Anthony Yax. “The design had the texture of a high-end lodge suite — virtually like a Windsor Court docket or Ritz-Carlton suite translated into an workplace.”

Woodard has already seen the idea resonate with neighboring tenants within the constructing. A tenant on the identical ground has already reached out asking learn how to replicate points of the design in an enlargement and renovation of its personal suite. “We really feel like we set a brand new normal for what workplace house might be. It doesn’t must be sterile, and it doesn’t must really feel overly company. It may be heat, versatile, and nonetheless carry out.”

In 2025, Stirling additionally celebrated a brand new Covington company headquarters together with Kent Design Construct at River Chase Workplace II, a 50,000-square-foot Class A workplace constructing. As for its downtown New Orleans workplace in Pan-Am, Woodard mentioned Stirling had already gone by two earlier inner strikes — first constructing out house on the twenty seventh ground, then in a while the seventeenth ground after one other tenant leased that earlier suite. Every transfer grew to become an opportunity to check new concepts about office design.

The most recent transfer, right into a gutted vacant suite on the Twenty second ground, gave Stirling the chance to push these concepts additional. The headquarters within the Central Enterprise District isn’t solely new workplace house for about 25 workers, but in addition an indication of what new workplace house can seem like in one of many metropolis’s premier Class A towers, Woodard mentioned.

“We had constructed out a really trendy workplace earlier than — glass, uncovered ceilings, all non-public workplaces — and that house leased shortly. So, after we moved once more, we requested how we might push the concept even additional and create one thing that felt distinctive not only for this constructing, however for downtown New Orleans,” Woodard mentioned. “If you wish to compete as a Class A constructing, you want facilities, nice service, and quite a lot of areas that enchantment to completely different sorts of tenants.”

Woodard added: “That model-home impact might be the only most vital factor these build-outs have performed for our leasing effort. Individuals purchase what they will see, not what a ground plan tells them it could possibly be, and this house offers potential tenants an actual instance of what’s doable.”

Silva mentioned the venture’s finishes and format distinguish it from a typical workplace renovation. “What makes it completely different is that it doesn’t really feel like a standard workplace. There are a number of locations the place folks can sit, collaborate, step away from their desks and break up the day, whether or not that’s within the lounge, on the bar, within the library space and even round a ping pong desk.”

Guests enter by a lobby anchored by a spherical desk made by native craftsman and New Orleans-based Doorman, then transfer previous reception right into a extra public zone with convention rooms on both aspect, a seating space with inset bookcases, after which a lounge-and-bar house.

“The nice and cozy really feel hits you as quickly as you stroll in,” Silva mentioned. “The wooden floors, the onerous ceilings, the trim, the millwork, the lounge and bar space — all of it comes collectively in a means that makes the workplace really feel comfy and alluring.”

Kerrigan mentioned the design makes use of symmetry, cased openings and heat supplies to create a vocabulary that blends the extra hospitality-driven public areas with the standard private-office hallways alongside the perimeter.

“The primary design problem was taking a deep ground plate with a whole lot of inside house and turning that into one thing folks would really wish to use,” Kerrigan mentioned. “As an alternative of pushing everybody into massive, shared work areas, we returned to a extra conventional format with non-public workplaces alongside the partitions and the frequent areas pulled inward. That gave us the chance to create a a lot hotter, extra intimate surroundings with wooden floors, oak paneling, colours and supplies that make the workplace really feel far more inviting.”

The venture displays a broader post-COVID shift in workplace design, mentioned Woodard. “We noticed a possibility to construct one thing extra hospitality-driven and extra residential in character: an area the place persons are genuinely excited to indicate up as a result of it presents one thing they will’t get at residence.”

Kerrigan credited René Rosas and his staff at New Orleans Customized Cabinetry LLC with the millwork and serving to convey the customized woodwork to life, together with Chase Blanchard of The whole lot Stone for the stonework, AOS Inside Environments for a lot of the furnishings, and Cole Pratt Gallery, the place the staff chosen a Mac Ball portray that serves as a focus within the lounge. She additionally mentioned the bar itself might simply have belonged in somebody’s home, underscoring the venture’s crossover between residential and industrial design.

Silva mentioned the extent of element and customized finishes, extra typical of a high-end luxurious residence, ought to stand out to guests to the workplace house. “The finishes are what leap out instantly,” he mentioned. “The customized wooden floors, the crown and trim particulars, the oak-finish millwork, the brass {hardware}, the sliding glass doorways and even the hidden pocket door behind the bar all contribute to a really completely different workplace expertise.”

Woodard mentioned the outstanding lounge and bar space got here out of a sensible drawback. The inside core of the workplace was not fascinating for conventional workplaces as a result of it had no home windows, so the staff as a substitute turned it right into a three-room hospitality zone: a espresso bar by day and occasion bar by night time, a central seating space, and a versatile third room that may operate as a “enjoyable/break” space — therefore the present ping pong desk — or a 3rd convention room.

“We requested learn how to make it fascinating, and that’s the place the concept of a espresso bar by day, a bar by night time, and a sequence of versatile hospitality areas got here from,” Woodard mentioned. “Individuals could not want as a lot workplace house as they as soon as did, however the house they do take needs to be higher — extra interesting to the individuals who work in it and the shoppers who go to.”