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Jama Software will relocate its headquarters from the Pearl District to Melvin Mark’s 2&Taylor downtown.

The technology company announced Friday that it has signed a lease for 34,629 square feet on the second and third floors of the former Yamhill Marketplace building, at 110 S.W. Yamhill St. A $10.5 million renovation there by Melvin Mark Development Co. is transforming a former Bally Total Fitness space into creative office and retail space.

Jama, which provides collaborative product delivery software, is one of the types of firms driving Portland’s creative office scene. According to a recent study by Impresa, a local economic research firm, in the past 10 years Portland had the fastest growing tech sector of any major metropolitan city in the nation, and the second largest output behind San Jose, Calif., in terms of gross domestic product.

Since launching six years ago, Jama has grown by leaps and bounds. Last year, it raised $13 million in its first round of venture capital funding, and this year it plans to increase its workforce from 100 to approximately 150.

Jessica Davis, director of communications for Jama, said the company plans to have 300 employees by the end of 2016, including 50 in satellite offices around the country and overseas.

“We’ve been really looking for the right space for some time now,” she said. “It’s been pretty competitive to find a place of that size that we can call our headquarters and really brand and develop … To get that kind of square footage you might have to go into a high-rise, but you’re so limited by the ceiling height, and kind of just the old traditional ‘officey’ structure, versus our spaces, which are very open and collaborative. And so we were able to, with this new space, build it to our exact specifications and needs.”

Jama occupies two separate spaces in the Pearl District. One, at 1060 N.W. Ninth Ave., is 12,513 square feet; the other, at 334 N.W. 11th Ave., is 10,327 square feet.

Melvin Mark CEO Jim Mark, in a prepared statement, said Jama is exactly the type of growing, creative business the company expected to attract when it launched the 2&Taylor project. Today’s creative companies, he said, want open office space that blends modern amenities with an industrial feel.

When renovated completely, the 70,397-square-foot 2&Taylor building will feature double-hung, Chicago-style operable windows; floor-to-ceiling windows; energy efficient lighting systems; a central atrium to let in natural light; exposed ceilings; a landscaped rooftop patio; and salvaged wood with steel and glass accents.

Office vacancy in the Portland market, according to Colliers International‘s fourth quarter analysis, hovered around 10 percent last year. However, creative office vacancy was less than 5 percent last month, Mark estimated.