By David A. Smith, Waterbury Republican-American, Conn. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Nov. 20--The Litchfield-based company that considered Torrington for its expansion but instead decided to launch its new high-tech venture in Pittsfield, Mass., will settle just south of that city's downtown.
WorkshopLive will move in coming weeks into quarters at 877 South Main St. in Pittsfield, said Mike Thomas, the company's senior vice president of business development. The company will occupy about 15,000 square feet in a 100,000-square-foot building owned by The Guardian Life Insurance Co. of America.
"It's a beautiful space," said Mike Thomas, senior vice president of business development for WorkshopLive. In addition to offering significant room for expansion and plentiful parking, the building's configuration was the most suitable of seven proposals the company received to house its operations.
WorkshopLive offers online music instruction through a proprietary Web-based technology that links students and teachers, then delivers music lessons via high-speed Internet. The company employs five people, but expects to add 10 jobs in Pittsfield in the next three to four months, and another 15 in the following six months. Ultimately, it says it could create 50 to 200 jobs during the next four to five years.
The entity is a spin-off of Morris resident David Smolover's other Litchfield-based ventures -- National Guitar Workshop, DayJams and Workshop Arts. Workshop Arts, which employs four people publishing books, compact discs, DVDs and videos for musical instruction, is also moving to Pittsfield.
Smolover strongly considered Torrington as the home for WorkshopLive, but company officials and city representatives were unable to strike an economic development deal with state officials. Ultimately, Pittsfield lured the company with a $750,000 grant.
WorkshopLive's proposed new home lies just off Route 7 and just north of Pittsfield's border with the town of Lenox. The company will spend the next month or so preparing the building for its operations and building the production studios in which to develop its products. The first jobs there will be largely videographers, recording engineers and others required to operate the production studios.
The lease should be completed in coming weeks, and the company will occupy two floors of the Pittsfield building, said Terence Chiaretto, director of corporate services for the Berkshire Life Insurance Co. of America, a Pittsfield-based subsidiary of Guardian.
A Guardian disaster-recovery operation is the building's only other tenant, occupying about 12,000 square feet. Guardian bought the building in 2001, shortly after it bought Berkshire Life. The building had once housed some operations of General Electric Co. and Pittsfield-based KB Toys Inc., but has been vacant for some time, Chiaretto said.
"We've done extensive renovations on the building and now are in the process of bringing in tenants," he said.
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