Work on New JAMF Software office to start in June

Tom Giffey |

Image: Matthew M. Long, Ayres Associates
Image: Matthew M. Long, Ayres Associates

South Barstow Street won’t be the only part of Eau Claire’s downtown getting attention this summer: Work will begin in June to prepare the site of JAMF Software’s new office next to Phoenix Park. On May 14, the Eau Claire City Council voted unanimously to approve a development agreement allowing the burgeoning, Blugold-powered software firm to build a four-story, 65,000-square-foot on land that had previously been slated for a second RCU office building. JAMF employs about 100 workers in Eau Claire and plans to grow to at least 210 workers in the new building (which will have room for 300). “It’s a company that helps us with brain gain, not brain drain,” Mike Schatz, the city’s economic development administrator, told the council.

As part of the development agreement, the city will pay up to $300,000 for site preparation and soil remediation – the land was contaminated by long-ago industrial activity – as well as provide JAMF with 145 parking stalls initially and 65 more by July 1, 2015. In exchange, JAMF promises to build an office that’s worth at least $7 million by 2015 and $8.5 million if the city later provides a nearby parking ramp. (City officials are eyeing the current post office site on North Barstow Street as an ideal place for such a ramp.)  

In a related move, the City Council also approved construction of a temporary parking lot on what is known at Lot 7 – a vacant lot at the corner of North Barstow and Wisconsin streets across from The Livery. This lot will be for the use of JAMF and RCU employees (an RCU parking lot sits where the JAMF office will be built). Stuart Schaefer of Commonweal Development, which is developing the project, said the building should be finished within a year.