The movers at Foley Mansfield are packing the boxes and preparing the desks for transport as the company gets ready to move into its new home in downtown Ferndale.
The environmental-clean-up firm is relocating from its Bingham Farms location at the end of June, completing a months-long process to move into its new offices.
Foley Mansfield has spent a pretty penny renovating the old Ferndale Public Schools office building on 9 Mile Road, half a block east of Woodward Avenue. The three-story building is one of the oldest in Ferndale and has undergone a complete reinvention of sorts.
The firm replaced an old garage with a three-story wing of offices, effectively doubling the building's space to 18,000 square feet. The new addition includes offices, a fitness center, large bathrooms with lockers and a rooftop terrace. There is also a nearly four-story, open-air atrium that lets natural light flood the new space.
The firm is also preserving a number of historic characteristics of the building that make it standout, such as brick walls, wood beams, mosaic tiles and the original wood floors.
Foley Mansfield bought the building from International Animal Exchange. Before that it had a long history with the Ferndale Public Schools, starting out as the Porter School in the 1870s. The current structure was built in 1915.
Source: Mary Lou Youngling, a spokeswoman for Foley Mansfield
Writer: Jon Zemke
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