Skateboards and B-Ball at ‘City Hall’
Brian Malliet was not at his desk when the Business Journal stopped by for a tour of BKM Capital Partners’ digs in Newport Beach―but his 4-inch replica was.
“That was from a tech conference I just went to,” said the chief executive of a fund manager that invests in multi-tenant, light industrial properties. “You go into an AI scanner and it does the 3D printing of you.”
Malliet’s office is on the bottom floor of a 23,000-square-foot, loft-like building the company moved into along Quail Street four years ago.
BKM bought the airport-area building for about $4 million, tore down “everything but two walls and the floor” and poured another $4 million into renovations.
Upgrades include an outdoor meeting space nestled in a shipping container, a kitchen with a pool table, a front entry wall made of skateboard decks and a basketball court the BKM team dubbed the City Hall.
“We have 11 offices throughout the West Coast and every quarter we bring everybody into the City Hall and we’ll do lunch-and-learns,” he said. The day usually ends with “3-point shots … for people to let off some steam.”
The building houses a handful of small and mid-sized tenants in four suites, including BKM’s 48 employees. The design, spearheaded by Irvine architectural firm Ware Malcomb, reflects the company’s “creative and collaborative” mindset―Malliet emphasized raw materials and roll up glass walls, to “bring the outside to the inside,” so it doesn’t “feel like you’re in mom’s and dad’s office back in the day.”
Editor’s note: The Business Journal today is premiering a new column about unique offices. If you would like to share your office with our readers, contact Mediha Dimartino at dimartino@ocbj.com.
