Santa Monica’s old Papermate site is transformed into a cool creative office hub

Santa Monica’s Pen Factory, an office park on the site of an old Papermate manufacturing facility, is finally complete, contractor Morley Builders announced Thursday.

The adaptive reuse project, developed by Clarion Partners and Lincoln Property Company, turned the old factory into more than 200,000 square feet of office space with the help of architect Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM).

The site’s previous owners, Hines, had wanted to build a project called the Bergamot Transit Village, a mixed-use complex that would have incorporated retail, residential, and office space to the neighborhood. After seven years of deliberations and false starts, Hines called it quits and sold the property to Lincoln and Clarion.

The Pen Factory is made up of two buildings, plus a central courtyard, a linear garden, and semi-private patios. There’s parking for 677 cars, though, hopefully, employees will also take advantage of the Expo Line, which has a stop across the street from the site at 26th and Bergamot. On-site showers and bike lockers have been added to entice people to use alternative transportation to work.

Courtesy of Morley Builders

There’s clearly a demand for office space in the area: 90,000 square feet of the Pen Factory has already been leased to AwesomenessTV, an online streaming company.