Renovated East Garfield Park building makes room for four small businesses

The developers, who also work at the space, were able to renovate the property with the help of a city grant that supports projects near train stations and bus lines.

Four arts and design-focused companies in East Garfield Park marked their official opening Thursday, in a newly renovated building that they hope will provide a stable place to grow and help boost the West Side neighborhood.

The 5,700-square-foot property, at 2811 W. Fulton St., houses Chicago Printworks, a print shop that caters to the arts community; Direction Tour Marketing, an arts marketing agency; Studio inHaus, an architectural rendering firm and FlightFX, an aircraft simulator design firm.

The $2 million project was developed by owner-occupants Micah Taylor, president of Chicago Printworks and Direction Tour Marketing, and Thomas and Laarni Livings, the husband-and-wife founders of Studio inHaus. Thomas Livings is a partner in FlightFX.

“We’re dedicated to serving as adult mentors to the youth in the area, creating sustainable jobs for our neighbors, improving the safety for the residents and converting a vacant warehouse into a purposeful community business anchor,” Taylor said.

Taylor and the Livings were friends and business owners who previously shared office space in the West Loop but were getting priced out of the neighborhood. The business owners live in the South Loop and weren’t familiar with East Garfield Park when they started looking for a space in 2021.

Taylor had never imagined being a property developer until they heard about the city’s Equitable Transit-Oriented Development grant, which focuses on projects on the South and West Side. The program awards grants to projects near train stations and bus lines to give residents better access to housing, jobs, services and commerce through public transportation.

In 2023, they received a $250,000 ETOD grant that helped finance the building’s renovation. The project was also financed by bank loans, which was used to buy the property from gearbox manufacturer Overton Chicago Gear.

Taylor said most ETOD projects are larger and few are owner-occupier ones like theirs. The three business partners estimated it would cost $1.5 million but expenses ballooned to $2 million by the time renovations finished in September.

“We were taken aback by the increase in construction costs,” Taylor said.

Major overhaul of the building, built in 1924, included replacing electrical and plumbing systems, installing an HVAC system and large windows.

“We couldn’t be more proud of the restorations made to the building. No corners were cut returning the 100-year-old building to its former glory,” Taylor said.

Mike Tomas, executive director of the Garfield Park Community Council, said, “It’s important to bring economic development to neighborhoods, bring residents out and bring more activity and vibrancy to our commercial corridor.”

“Hopefully, it leverages more development,” Tomas said, who lives near the property. “Micah and his team have done a nice job with the building’s design. They are not hiding behind a fence or barricading themselves in.”

The Garfield Park Community Council has also become a customer of Chicago Printworks, ordering posters and other marketing materials. New businesses “really help our neighborhood and bring amenities and employment,” Tomas said.

The new space gives the four companies more room to expand and hire more workers.

“Chicago Printworks and FlightFX are both in a period of rapid growth,” Taylor said. “We’ll both be actively pursuing hiring now that we have space to accommodate new hires. We were significantly limited by space in our previous location in the West Loop.”

Taylor founded Direction Tour Marketing in 1999. The company provides marketing and advertising services to arts groups such as dance companies, theaters, museums and festival producers. He launched Chicago Printworks in 2009 to provide affordable printing to the city’s arts community because he was unsatisfied with the services available to smaller organizations. Taylor currently has 12 employees.

Studio inHaus, established in 2011, creates visual and interactive depictions for architectural design development and real estate marketing. It has seven employees.

“We are happy to finally have a permanent home at 2811 W. Fulton,” Thomas Livings said. The company has moved to nine different locations in the last 15 years.

“Our investment here was to enable us to find a place to put down roots, provide stability for business planning and become part of an ecosystem greater than ourselves,” Thomas Livings said. “We hope this project inspires other small business owners that it’s worthwhile finding a space to establish themselves as owners and not worry about being priced out and forced to move.”