A San Diego-based coworking company has opened a space in Portland’s Pearl District following an extensive renovation of the Irving Street Lofts condominium building’s ground floor.

CommonGrounds Workplace offers clients custom-designed and built work spaces for short- or long-term use. The spaces can be as small as a single desk or as large as a conference room with dozens of desks. The company’s new 14,239-square-foot location at 630 N.W. 14th Ave. includes the entire ground floor and a new second-level mezzanine. The entry and communal area have 17-foot-high ceilings and lead to private offices, team rooms, coworking spaces, four video-enabled conference rooms, casual gathering areas and an espresso bar.

Fortis Construction served as general contractor for the project, which was designed by the joint team of San Francisco-based Rapt Studio and CommonGrounds’ in-house designers.

“We try to design spaces to fit the location and the building, and also the community around it,” said Patti Faulkner, CommonGrounds’ director of marketing. “A space here in Portland looks very different than a space in Salt Lake City or Denver.”

In addition to those cities, CommonGrounds has locations in Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose and Minneapolis. The company expects to expand to roughly 50 locations in the next 24 months. Construction is progressing in at least 12 U.S. cities, with openings planned in 2019 or 2020; development for 30 additional locations is under way.

“We try to preserve natural features and the elements that make a great work space,” Faulkner said. “We want light-filled windows and originality. If there’s anything original we can keep, we do. Here, they took the elements of the windows that are original to the building and mirrored them on the interior of construction. Our design team does a really great job capturing that kind of thing.”

The use of prefabricated wall systems manufactured by Italian firm Tecno allows for a nearly endless array of work-space layouts that can be tailored to fit a client’s needs exactly.

“This solved … problems we found in other locations while placing teams into coworking locations,” Faulkner said. “Sound is a big one, and the flexibility to change as well. So, we call this a hackable environment.”

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