Mindfield grows staff as it preps to move into GAR

Business is not only good at Mindfield, it's getting exciting for the downtown Detroit-based company.

The boutique creative film and video agency has grown its client roster, hired a few more people and is in the process of renovating one of the Central Business District's most iconic buildings, the castle-like Grand Army of the Republic structure, into its new headquarters.

"It (business) is going gangbusters," says David Carleton, partner with Mindfield. "We have had an exciting couple of years."

Mindfield has added six new clients in the last year, including Art Van Furniture and Google. That has allowed it to hire two people over the last year, expanding its team to 16 employees and a couple of summer interns. One of its recent hires is a College for Creative Studies graduate who was formerly an intern. Carleton credits some of the growth to downtown Detroit's reemergence as a creative class hub in recent years.

"It's no longer a taboo thing to be a creative firm in Detroit," Carleton says. "It's no longer 'drop everything and go to New York or L.A.' There is a tremendous talent pool here that has been overlooked."

All of those employees are gearing up for a move to the Grand Army of the Republic building at Grand River and Cass avenues early next year. Mindfield bought the former Civil War veterans hall and has spent the last year-plus restoring it to its former grandeur. Carleton expects construction to wrap up within eight months. "These things never happen as quickly as you want them to but this is really exciting," he says.

That begs the question of what Mindfield plans to do with its current home on Library Street. The company renovated the office building right behind the Compuware Building garage into a mixed-use space of its offices and Vicente's restaurant on the ground floor. Carleton says his firm is looking at either leasing out the couple of floors of loft-style office space to another business or perhaps making it a couple of apartments.

"We have had a number of people ask to put dibs on the place," Carleton says.

Source: David Carleton, partner with Mindfield
Writer: Jon Zemke

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