KEY TAKEAWAYS: Stirling Properties renovated an 8,500-square-foot headquarters on the 22nd floor of the Pan-American Life Center. The office features a “resimercial” design blending residential comfort with commercial workspace functionality. The build-out includes hospitality-inspired ame nities such as a lounge, bar, library area and flexible collaboration spaces. Company leaders say the project reflects evolving post-COVID workplace expectations and supports downtown leasing efforts.   Project description: Stirling Properties has renovated its downtown New Orleans headquarters on the 22nd floor of the Pan-American Life Center, transforming raw vacant space into an 8,500-square-foot office with a hospitality-driven, residential-style feel. Location: 601 Poydras St., 22nd floor, Pan-American Life Center Size: 8,500 rentable square feet Owner: Stirling Properties Architect: Atelier Design General contractor: Pangea Construction Atelier Design owner Wendy Kerrigan has a word for what Stirling Properties created in its new downtown New Orleans headquarters: “resimercial.” The term describes a blend of residential warmth and commercial office design, shaping a more hospitality-driven workplace inside the firm’s newly renovated 22nd-floor space in the Pan-American Life Center at 601 Poydras St. “I call it ‘resimercial’: a blend of residential warmth and commercial function, where at times you feel less like you’re in a big office building and more like you’ve stepped into an intimate home,” said Kerrigan. “If people are going to spend that much time in an office, it’s important to give them spaces that don’t feel like they are only about work. That was really the goal here — to create an office with hospitality and comfort built into it.” Stirling Properties occupies about 8,500 rentable square feet within the 28-story, 673,000-square-foot building, which Stirling has owned since 2010 and currently leases at about 83% occupancy. The build-out includes private perimeter offices, conference rooms, a foyer, sitting area, kitchen and banquette, and a lounge-and-bar space. “This space is our commitment to downtown New Orleans — and a statement that this market can go toe-to-toe with Class A office anywhere in the country,” said John Woodard, Vice President for Stirling. Woodard leads the company’s New Orleans office at the Pan-American Life Center. Kerrigan’s Atelier Design was the lead architect and Metairie-based Pangea Construction was the general contractor. Pangea Construction completed the build-out in about 120 to 140 days, starting from raw, slab-to-slab space with nothing in place. “I’ve been doing this for more than 25 years, and as far as tenant renovations go, this is one of the premier spaces I’ve worked on,” said Mark Silva, owner of Pangea Construction, who was joined on the project by his superintendent Anthony Yax. “The design had the feel of a high-end hotel suite — almost like a Windsor Court or Ritz-Carlton suite translated into an office.” Woodard has already seen the concept resonate with neighboring tenants in the building. A tenant on the same floor has already reached out asking how to replicate aspects of the design in an expansion and renovation of its own suite. “We feel like we set a new standard for what office space can be. It doesn’t have to be sterile, and it doesn’t have to feel overly corporate. It can be warm, flexible, and still perform.” In 2025, Stirling also celebrated a new Covington corporate headquarters in conjunction with Kent Design Build at River Chase Office II, a 50,000-square-foot Class A office building. As for its downtown New Orleans office in Pan-Am, Woodard said Stirling had already gone through two previous internal moves — first building out space on the 27th floor, then later on the 17th floor after another tenant leased that earlier suite. Each move became a chance to test new ideas about workplace design. The latest move, into a gutted vacant suite on the 22nd floor, gave Stirling the opportunity to push those ideas further. The headquarters in the Central Business District is not only new office space for about 25 employees, but also a demonstration of what new office space can look like in one of the city’s premier Class A towers, Woodard said. “We had built out a very modern office before — glass, exposed ceilings, all private offices — and that space leased quickly. So, when we moved again, we asked how we could push the idea even further and create something that felt unique not just for this building, but for downtown New Orleans,” Woodard said. “If you want to compete as a Class A building, you need amenities, great service, and a variety of spaces that appeal to different kinds of tenants.” Woodard added: “That model-home effect is probably the single most important thing these build-outs have done for our leasing effort. People buy what they can see, not what a floor plan tells them it could be, and this space gives prospective tenants a real example of what’s possible.” Silva said the project’s finishes and layout distinguish it from a typical office renovation. “What makes it different is that it doesn’t feel like a normal office. There are multiple places where people can sit, collaborate, step away from their desks and break up the day, whether that’s in the lounge, at the bar, in the library area or even around a ping pong table.” Visitors enter through a foyer anchored by a round table made by local craftsman and New Orleans-based Doorman, then move past reception into a more public zone with conference rooms on either side, a seating area with inset bookcases, and then a lounge-and-bar space. “The warm feel hits you as soon as you walk in,” Silva said. “The wood floors, the hard ceilings, the trim, the millwork, the lounge and bar area — it all comes together in a way that makes the office feel comfortable and inviting.” Kerrigan said the design uses symmetry, cased openings and warm materials to create a vocabulary that blends the more hospitality-driven public spaces with the traditional private-office hallways along the perimeter. “The main design challenge was taking a deep floor plate with a lot of interior space and turning that into something people would actually want to use,” Kerrigan said. “Instead of pushing everyone into large, shared work areas, we returned to a more traditional layout with private offices along the walls and the common spaces pulled inward. That gave us the opportunity to create a much warmer, more intimate environment with wood floors, oak paneling, colors and materials that make the office feel much more inviting.” The project reflects a broader post-COVID shift in office design, said Woodard. “We saw an opportunity to build something more hospitality-driven and more residential in character: a space where people are genuinely excited to show up because it offers something they can’t get at home.” Kerrigan credited René Rosas and his team at New Orleans Custom Cabinetry LLC with the millwork and helping bring the custom woodwork to life, along with Chase Blanchard of Everything Stone for the stonework, AOS Interior Environments for much of the furniture, and Cole Pratt Gallery, where the team selected a Mac Ball painting that serves as a focal point in the lounge. She also said the bar itself could easily have belonged in someone’s house, underscoring the project’s crossover between residential and commercial design. Silva said the level of detail and custom finishes, more typical of a high-end luxury home, should stand out to visitors to the office space. “The finishes are what jump out right away,” he said. “The custom wood floors, the crown and trim details, the oak-finish millwork, the brass hardware, the sliding glass doors and even the hidden pocket door behind the bar all contribute to a very different office experience.” Woodard said the prominent lounge and bar area came out of a practical problem. The interior core of the office was not desirable for traditional offices because it had no windows, so the team instead turned it into a three-room hospitality zone: a coffee bar by day and event bar by night, a central seating area, and a flexible third room that can function as a “fun/break” area — hence the current ping pong table — or a third conference room. “We asked how to make it interesting, and that’s where the idea of a coffee bar by day, a bar by night, and a series of flexible hospitality spaces came from,” Woodard said. “People may not need as much office space as they once did, but the space they do take has to be better — more appealing to the people who work in it and the clients who visit.” ...read more read less