Cabco, Office Interiors Moving Into New 30,000 Square Foot Building In Dartmouth
DARTMOUTH – In the very near future, two prominent Maritimes businesses, operated by members of the same family, will be moving into a brand-new location in Dartmouth. Cabco Communications Group and Office Interiors, both owned in part by members of the Mills family, will share a state-of-art workspace in a 30,000 square-foot building on Windmill Road.
Plans to construct the new building began more than a year ago. Despite being constructed during the pandemic, the structure was completed on time and on budget.
Don Mills, his son Michael Mills, and brother Jim Mills purchased Cabco in 2019. The company provides businesses with communication infrastructure. The other business, Office Interiors, which is owned by Jim Mills, sells office furniture and office technology and has offices in New Brunswick too. So, it’s easy to see how both businesses can work together on providing services to the same client.
“The businesses are very complementary, and we anticipate we’ll be able to leverage sales on both sides of the business for each other, so a closer relationship made a lot of sense,” said Don Mills, one of the co-owners of Cabco who is also known for his columns in Saltwire and Brunswick News publications.
“We can see some opportunity by working together on joint projects for sure.”
The new Windmill Road building will also act as a showcase for potential clients. The same equipment that 160 employees of both businesses use day-to-day will be shown off to customers, so they can see the latest workplace technology.
“For our customers, it’s going to be a living laboratory, in terms of what the art of the possible is for a workplace,” said Jim Mills. “Our customers are going to be able to see a wide range of possible solutions that they can consider.”
“There’s a number of advantages. For our team, they’re going to have the most up-to-date workspace in the region. The team is very excited to have the space that we’re building.”
One of the more interesting pieces of furniture Jim can show off is a lighting fixture that can act as an acoustic silencer at the same time, on top of other advances in office technology.
“One of our primary partners on the furniture side, a company called Buzzispace, makes oversized light fixtures that are made out of felt and their light fixtures have acoustic quieting properties. They are multi-use,” explains Jim.
“The building is going to show a wide variety of security cameras to show what the art of the possible is. A customer is never going to have (such a wide variety of cameras), but because we’re in the business, we want to show as much variety as possible.”
The new building will also allow customers to discover both companies more easily. The location on Windmill road is near a lot of heavy traffic, and the new building will easily catch people’s eye. This is especially important for Cabco, which was “tucked away” on Burnside prior to moving.
“The thing I’m most excited about, in terms of that building, is the visibility it provides to the business,” said Michael Mills. “Being on Windmill Road, a high traffic road, and being able to have our name on the building will be good for marketing the business overall.”
Moving into the new place also made financial sense for both companies. They now own their old building for nearly the same cost as renting commercial space, and the two businesses can split many operational expenses.
“It simply allows us to share resources,” said Jim Mills. “It’s the one-plus-one-equals-three kind of thing, where it allows us to do more inside the same spending envelope than we otherwise could do because we are sharing resources, such as people and space.”