While the pandemic has presented challenges, Utah-based coworking company Kiln opened its first out-of-state expansion in Boulder this month.
“Boulder’s unique personality makes it a great fit for Kiln,” Arian Lewis, Kiln co-founder and CEO, said in a statement. “It’s socially conscious and tech-focused, the birthplace of many positive social and environmental movements. Overall, Boulder is a highly creative community that continues to pioneer the future. We couldn’t be more excited to open a flagship location for Kiln on Pearl Street.”
The company, which was founded in Salt Lake City in 2017, has four operating locations and others under development, with plans to continue expanding to lifestyle markets across the West. Kiln has hopes to bring another location to the greater Denver area within the next 12 to 24 months.
Kiln is home to more than 1,100 members and 250 businesses across its four locations, including Go1, Forethought and Chamber Media. Twenty percent of each location’s office space is dedicated to coworking space, while 80% is dedicated to flex private office space designed for teams up to 50.
We spoke with Lewis to ask a few questions about the new Boulder office space.
How does this space represent the company’s values?
Kiln Boulder is a boutique, premium flex office and coworking space, blending work and lifestyle elements to support its members holistically. Kiln’s blend of natural materials, biophilic design, art, and furniture collections were assembled to resonate with Boulder’s rugged mountain town vibe, while best serving the dynamic tech community with purposeful, thoughtful and creative design. Kiln’s overall vision is to deliver an unparalleled work experience that elevates the performance and lifestyle of its members through an ecosystem of people, products, places and spaces.
What key features were must-haves in the space?
Kiln Boulder features an on-site theater, refresh rooms with massage chairs, showers, cycling and treadmill desks, parenting room, café, podcast studio, bike storage, deep work rooms and other all-inclusive amenities. With a focus on well-being, Kiln has taken a proactive approach to Covid-19, installing hospital-grade proactive HVAC purifier that uses ions and oxidizers to kill viruses in the air and on surfaces, micro-ionizers for continuous cleaning in rooms using UVC technology, temperature check-ins for members and staff and seven other proactive measures.
What other details should people know about the space?
Kiln Boulder was created by repurposing old retail space on Pearl Street, combining seven prior buildings, which included studios, a warehouse and a 1950s storefront, into a single cohesive beautifully designed 22,000-square-foot space. Instead of demolishing the structures, property owner John Reynolds and I saw an opportunity to "honor the bones" of the building and reuse them through a joint restorative project. The monumental two-year task of knitting seven disparate buildings together into one cohesive structure fell to Kiln co-founder and Creative Director Leigh Radford, Boulder-based architectural firm Arc11 Principal Architects James Trewitt & E.J. Meade, and Duggan Construction.
