Satellite imaging firm plans bigger S.F. picture
Descartes moving into vacant Firestone Building, hopes to encourage startups
After a year of looking, Descartes Labs has signed a long-term lease on a permanent office a few blocks from the Plaza.
In making a 10-year commitment to the Firestone Building at North Guadalupe and West Alameda streets, Descartes Labs says it is sending a message that, as Santa Fe helps boost its growth, the company will open itself to the community and welcome public gatherings and other startups.
The 18,000-square-foot building at 100 N. Guadalupe St., overlooking the Santa Fe River, will have areas for community events, receptions, public education and even serve as a potential incubator for other companies that need a sublease for their own startups, said Mark Johnson, a founder and chief executive officer of Descartes Labs.
The scientists at Descartes Labs program super-fast computers to translate satellite data into visual images. Johnson helps recruit scientists from all over the country to Santa Fe to work for clients doing deep dives into agriculture, climate, drought and Earth imaging. On Friday, the company planned to release satellite images from the devastating wildfires in Northern California, shots from before and after.
Johnson hopes the design for the permanent headquarters will both maintain a classic Santa Fe feel and bring some of the startup design culture of the Silicon Valley to a historic block.
“This building is going to be critical,”
Johnson said as he stood on a balcony overlooking the river and Northern New Mexico’s changing aspen trees. Johnson launched Descartes three years ago in partnership with a group of scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory and $3 million in seed capital. The company recently closed on a new round of financing, raising $30 million from private backers.
Its initial headquarters was in a small office on Central Avenue in Los Alamos, just a few blocks from the national laboratory. Then it moved a portion of its operations to a small adobe on East DeVargas Street in Santa Fe to accommodate a growing workforce that lived here and wanted to bike or walk to the job. It has recently rented an even larger space above a gallery in the Santa Fe Railyard, but that also is too small.
For Johnson, the long-term lease came after looking at dozens of spaces in and around the downtown core — including the Market Station building and the old Whole Foods building on South St. Francis Drive. The firm was looking for enough space for 80 employees who will be working in Santa Fe by the end of next year.
“Descartes people work in many different ways,” he said. “Some sit at a desk, some stand at a desk, some work outside.”
The Firestone Building was built in the early 1980s by the Peters Co., which used it as a music hall and sports bar. It then was leased to Firestone Tire for a downtown service center and later purchased by First State Bank, which invested more than $1 million to use the facility as its
regional headquarters.
Phase One Realty bought the property after the bank merged and ran into financial trouble. It has been vacant for several years.
Ernie Romero of Phase One
said his firm had contemplated breaking the building up into smaller pieces but refrained with the hope it could be used by a major employer like Decartes Labs. Unique to downtown properties, it has both on-site parking, an elevator and a full, finished basement and commercial kitchen.
“We think it a statement building and we wanted a great company here,” Romero said. Permit applications have already been filed with the city of Santa Fe to demolish some interior walls and to reconfigure part of the space for the staircase, Romero said.
Descartes expects to invest another $1 million-plus into the property.
Johnson said he has found a Santa Fe architect and designer who can use the project to build their own credentials. It includes Chandler Prewitt of Chandler Prewitt Design, a New Mexico native who worked in Silicon Valley on projects for DropBox and Instagram but is now back home trying to grow his company here.
Prewitt wants to bring a design that will echo the scientific feel of LANL and Bell Labs, but create a more colorful modern twist that will be unique to the Descartes Labs headquarters and Santa Fe.
Th architect is Alexander Dzurec, who has plans to open the building with fewer walls and a staircase, while still allowing for individual workspaces, private offices and pods. The timetable is tight because Johnson wants to move his employees in by the summer of 2018.
Johnson also has been active in Santa Fe’s efforts to attract more startup companies and promote entrepreneurship with a co-working space. He said Descartes will not initially need all of its new space and sees the possibility of subleasing to other new tech firms or Santa Fe startups.
“I want people to walk into this space and say, ‘Wow,’ ” Johnson said.