This week marks 5 years since we officially closed on our office building—our HQ here in Jacksonville, FL. And like many great origin stories, it started in a cramped little corner of the world… upstairs, down the hall, and around the corner in a single-office room that I eventually crammed three people into.
We still laugh about how the office door would smack into Marie’s desk if you opened it too far. Carrier reps would visit and be stunned that we were building such a high-quality book of business from that little corner in the sky.
After four years up there, we moved downstairs into about 1,000 square feet and felt like we had arrived. We had a lobby, a conference room, and even an office with a door for me. We joked about what extravagant purchase we could make to flaunt our new space and settled on the most unnecessary one we could think of in Florida: a coat rack.
We loved that office. We weren’t planning to move anytime soon… until life nudged us forward.
About a year later, at 5pm on a Monday, our landlord—who was also a client and friend—delivered the tough news. With their business growing and ours too, the parking lot was bursting at the seams, and they needed our space back. I was being, very lovingly, evicted.
That night, I scoured every corner of the internet for office space in Jacksonville and came up completely empty. Discouraged, I went to bed.
The next morning, I showed up at a real estate investor breakfast (shout out to networking events), and casually said, “Hey, putting this out into the universe—if anyone knows of office space, I’m looking.” A client-turned-friend sitting next to me said, “You should buy my office.”
What followed was a flurry of “Wait, is this a real conversation?” and “I love your office!” and a few quick texts to my banker. We were under contract the next day… and closed in about a month.
It felt like the luckiest thing in the world—until you realize this all happened in March 2020. I had just bought a building… right as the world shut down. For a minute, I feared I’d just purchased the world’s most expensive mailbox.
We did a remote closing where the notary watched us sign documents through the glass in my front door. My amazing banker dropped off champagne and donuts, and I celebrated with my husband and kids in the hot tub that night anyway.
Originally, I’d planned to lease out half the building for a few years. But the timing just didn’t feel right. And thank goodness I didn’t—because five years later, we’ve grown into every inch of this building. In fact, we’re currently undergoing a little HQ glow-up, adding even more space to keep up with our team and all the exciting growth happening.
I’m incredibly grateful to our former landlords for the gentle nudge that turned into a “fly little birdie” moment. And to the seller, for passing along a space that was filled with good energy and has become such a special home for our team.
We never got to have a grand opening thanks to COVID, and that goes against our “work hard / play hard” philosophy. So today, we’re celebrating 5 years of this beautiful building with Chick-fil-A biscuits, gratitude, and a moment to reflect on how far we’ve come.
Here’s to every unexpected twist, every lucky break, and every square foot of this space we call home.
