SPN’s headquarters are moving!

In a few months, we’ll be moving the Silicon Prairie News headquarters into a new space in North Downtown Omaha’s Mastercraft Building! The Mastercraft (left), a 140,000 square-foot building situated just north of the new TD Ameritrade Park and Hot Shops Art Center, is a former furniture warehouse that’s now home to a number of…

The Silicon Prairie News Omaha team gets a little wacky in the photo booth at Wednesday’s Startup Job Crawl held in the Mastercraft Building, the future home of the SPN headquarters.

In a few months, we’ll be moving the Silicon Prairie News headquarters into a new space in North Downtown Omaha’s Mastercraft Building!

The Mastercraft (left), a 140,000 square-foot building situated just north of the new TD Ameritrade Park and Hot Shops Art Center, is a former furniture warehouse that’s now home to a number of our city’s startups and creative companies.

We selected the Mastercraft because of the entrepreneurial energy and culture that permeates the building. We wanted to be surrounded by, as well as help contribute to, the events and activities that are taking place. In fact, it was the building’s high concentration of startups and energy, that led us to chose the Mastercraft as the venue for our first Omaha Startup Job Crawl.

To us, it’s exciting not only to think about what the Mastercraft itself will turn into one, three and even five years down the line, but also start to imagine the surrounding area evolving to become a recognizable part of town for numerous other companies, restaurants, residential options, cultural and art destinations and much more.

Having our own office is an exciting milestone for us, and it’s a testament to the Silicon Prairie community’s awesome growth over the last few years. We consider ourselves a startup just like the companies we cover, and we grew out of the amazing support of my co-founder‘s company, Brightmix, whose office (left) has served as our home since inception. Now, as the community grows, we grow, too, adding team members, solidifying our business model and continuing to explore an emerging model for grassroots entrepreneurial ecosystem development in and around Omaha, Des Moines – where we also maintain an office – and Kansas City.

It is still crazy to think that roughly three and a half short years ago, SPN was just an idea. At the point of launching the site, I don’t think I, and others, thought that SPN would grow into a full-fledged startup business of its own. It all started with a simple idea of focusing on and supporting the individuals, business, ideas and hustle that exist in our own backyard.

At the end of the day, it has been all about the people, and it will continue to remain that way in the years to come. Our region is home to some of the most passionate, dedicated and inspiring folks around, and our objective is to continue focusing on how we can connect with, cover and collaborate with the people who hold the ideas.

If all stays on schedule, we will move into our new space, Suite 208, by early June. Once we get moved in and settled, we’ll be announcing a grand-opening party – coinciding with our fourth birthday – to celebrate, inviting everyone to come and visit our new office.

We are excited to take things to the next level over the years to come, and we feel collectively as a community we are on the verge of even greater things!

Keep dreaming, continue building, and together we’ll look back years from now at the tremendous results that have come about as a result of our hard work and dedication to leaving our mark on the community.

Here are a few photos from our lease-signing on Wednesday:

Dusty Davidson (back left) and Jeff Slobotski (back right) sign the lease with Bob Grinnell (front left), owner of Mastercraft, and Ryan Ellis, president of P.J. Morgan Real Estate.

Slobotski takes his first step into the newly leased space.

A ceremonial swinging of the sledgehammer by Davidson (left) and Slobotski (right) takes place to mark the beginning of the office build-out.

The front door of the future Silicon Prairie News headquarters.


Credits: Photo of Silicon Prairie News team by Justin Limonges. Photo of Brightmix by Brightmix via Flickr. Photos of new space by Silicon Prairie News.

This story is part of the AIM Archive

This story is part of the AIM Institute Archive on Silicon Prairie News. AIM gifted SPN to the Nebraska Journalism Trust in January 2023. Learn more about SPN’s origin »

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