The company responsible for designing such well–known products as the Crest SpinBrush and Dutch Boy Twist & Pour paint container next year will move into a distinguished University Circle landmark with the hope of using the renovated space to spin off at least two companies annually.
Nottingham•Spirk Design Associates Inc., known for spawning often lucrative startup companies, purchased the 50,000 square foot First Church of Christ Scientist building on Overlook Road. The limestone structure was built in 1930 and modeled after the Pantheon in Rome. Adjacent to the building on the 5 acre property is a 155–foot–tall bell tower that can be seen from Case Western Reserve University's campus.
Nottingham•Spirk plans to remodel portions of its new home, which will be re–named the Nottingham•Spirk Innovation Center, and to construct a 7,000–square–foot addition.
The purchase will allow the company's 50–person staff to be located under the same roof. The staff at present is divided between two buildings, which comprise a total of 25,000 square feet in University Circle.
The city of Cleveland is formulating a tax abatement and loan package to help Nottingham•Spirk pay for some of the building's improvements.
Nottingham•Spirk likely will hire 12 designers and engineers within two years, but “the real job creation will be in the startups,” Mr. Nottingham said.
“The number (of people hired for each startup) depends on the product they manufacture,” he said.
The startup companies would market consumer products that Nottingham•Spirk designs. Each startup would receive an investment of $1 million to $2 million from individual investors from whom Nottingham•Spirk already has received commitments, and each startup would be operated by a “jockey,” or a person with marketing and sales experience in the appropriate industry, Mr. Nottingham said.
Nottingham•Spirk already has launched 11 startups — nine of which are located in Northeast Ohio and one that has a 100,000–square–foot operation in Erie, Pa. The remaining company proved to be an immediate success when consumer products giant Procter & Gamble Co. bought it two years ago. The startup's product was a handheld, battery–operated spinning toothbrush, which P&G renamed Crest SpinBrush. P&G sold more than $300 million of the toothbrushes last year.
Nottingham•Spirk is responsible for over 300 commercialized patents. Its designs, which include Huffy Corp.'s updated Green Machine, a low–riding child's three–wheeler, and Sherwin•Williams Co.'s Twist & Pour paint container, have produced combined sales of more than $20 billion, Messrs. Nottingham and Spirk said.
“Add up all the movies Harrison Ford has made, and it's only $4 billion,” Mr. Spirk said.
The startups the company develops will be housed in offices that will overlook the former church's sanctuary. The octagonal sanctuary space will be transformed into the company's design studio, and a similarly shaped basement–level space will become a construction area for prototypes.
However, the company plans to leave the building largely as is to maintain its character. For example, it plans to restore a floor–to–ceiling, intricately carved mahogany pipe organ and to add computer soft–ware that would enable it to play automatically, similar to a player piano, Mr. Spirk said.
Added Mr. Nottingham: “You have to be respectful of the past when you're inventing the future. This building will be a metaphor for combining the past architectural heritage with an inspirational environment for creating future products.”
First Church of Christ Scientist chairman Dan Austin rhetorically asked, “Who would have ever conceived such a good use for the building?”
One thing that won't change because of the company's new home is that Messrs. Nottingham and Spirk will share an office — something they've been doing since they started the company the year they graduated with industrial design degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Art.
Their constant togetherness prompted the staff to give them a two–headed statue, which, of course, the staff designed and built.
“They think of us as a two–headed monster, but we think two heads are better than one,” Mr. Nottingham said.
