The community advancement firm OHM Advisors is expanding its Midland presence this summer, moving from its current location and into the Ellsworth Place development downtown. In addition to moving its ten Midland employees, OHM is moving employees from its Saginaw offices to town, growing its Midland office to 25 workers.
OHM, a community advancement firm that specializes in architecture, engineering, and planning services, first moved to Midland in January 2016. Having established its mid-Michigan presence with an office in Mt. Pleasant, the company moved to Midland to better attract a talented workforce.
"Like many companies, we were trying to attract the new graduates, the millennials," says Craig Schripsema, Managing Director of the OHM Advisors Central Michigan Office. "Midland had more to offer with a bigger downtown and more amenities. And then around 2015, Midland made a pledge to improve its downtown, which aligns with OHM's philosophy."
The move to Ellsworth Place, a three-story mixed-use building that OHM had a hand in designing, provides OHM room to grow. Going from a 3,000 sq. ft. office to a 9,000 sq. ft. office, it allows the company to consolidate its Midland and Saginaw locations under one roof.
The building itself represents the direction OHM hopes to help guide Midland, with more people living and working downtown. Ellsworth Place features office space on the ground floor and two floors of eight condos above.
"Downtown needs more housing and it needs more people," Schripsema says. "It takes people living downtown to drive business there, which then makes more people wanting to come."
As for current work in the region, OHM Advisors is working on designing several new bridges throughout Midland County, bridges that cut the cost of building them yet still retain aesthetic value.
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