START UP NEST: The Verge Fund remodels a 1926 warehouse to shelter tiny techs

Aug. 23--A group of Albuquerque businessmen aims to turn a former Downtown warehouse into a place where tiny, venturebacked companies can skip office setup hassles and get down to the business of growing.

The Verge Building will be "the optimal physical environment for high-tech startups," said Tom Stephenson, founder and general partner of Albuquerque-based venture capital firm Verge Fund.

The Verge Building -- three floors of expandable, modern offices, conference rooms and flexible workspaces -- will be in the J.S. Brown Mercantile Building near Lomas and Broadway.

Two of Stephenson's partners in Verge, serial entrepreneurs Bill Bice and Ron McPhee, along with Albuquerque commercial real estate broker Seth Gardenswartz, bought the 81-year-old, 29,000-squarefoot brick building from its former owners, the Gallagher, Cassados and Mann law firm, in June.

The law firm will keep its offices on the building's second floor.

Affordable room

Verge and several of its portfolio companies will move into some of the offices, and the rest will be available for rent to small companies, starting at about $550 for a small office and conference room access.

Bice says the offices will have high-speed Internet access and phones already set up, and as businesses grow from one or two people to a fully staffed startup, they can easily add work space.

"We're trying to wipe out the logistical issues that small tech companies have," he said.

Crews from Enterprise Builders, working from concepts by Rekow Designs, have already gutted the third and first floors, back to the original bricks and rough wood warehouse floors.

Offices around the building's perimeter, and central conference and work space, will be divided by translucent polycarbonate panels, creating what Gardenswartz calls a "high-tech" look while keeping much of the building's original wood ceilings and brick structure visible.

The building was erected in 1926 by the J.S. Brown Mercantile Co. to house grocery and banking businesses. Over the years, it has housed court reporting firms, law firms, commercial companies and government agencies including the Mid-Region Council of Governments.

The building's last remodel was in 1986.

Back to cool

"They covered all the cool stuff," Gardenswartz said. "And now, that's the most dated look ever. We're taking some of the original structure back."

Stephenson, who once operated a business incubator in Austin, Texas, says the building's open floor plan will be conducive to cooperation and commiseration between entrepreneurs.

A front desk receptionist will accept packages and visitors for all of the building's tenants.

"This lets them be efficient," he said. "There's no value in our portfolio CEOs calling around to find a phone system. This is when they're in their most dramatic, difficult growth phase."

As part of the agreement with the law firm, the building's purchase price was not disclosed.

Verge Fund was founded in 2004 and makes $100,000 to $500,000 "seed"-stage investments. Its wide-ranging portfolio includes oil field water purification firm Altela, Internet marketing startup Boomtime, experimental aircraft instrument developer Vertical Power, and optical alcohol testing firm TruTouch Technologies.

It is currently located in the Lockheed Martin building at University and Avenida Cesar Chavez SE.

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