October 25, 2011

PeopleMatter Moving Headquarters to Upper King Street

Brendan Kearney  /  Post & Courier

PeopleMatter, which makes human resources software for the service industry, is moving its headquarters to Upper King Street as part of a plan to expand its workforce roughly fivefold in the next five years, the company is announcing Monday evening.

The company, which has about 70 employees in North Charleston, Atlanta and San Francisco, will remain in its current space at the former Navy base for the next year while the historic building at 466 King St. is revamped and expanded.

Then, once it's downtown, the second phase of the overall development, code-named Project Bahamas until now, is to expand into a new building planned for the current site of Charleston Beer Works at 468 King St.

The expansion plan calls for an investment of $18.8 million over the next five years and is expected to create 265 new jobs.

In an interview on Friday, PeopleMatter co-founder and CEO Nate DaPore said, given the nature of his company's business and its trajectory, it needed to be in "a vibrant, growing community" like Upper King. He hopes his company's move will be a "catalyst" for other software and tech companies to follow.

"And I think it will," DaPore said. "Because it will prove to other companies that you can open up very large facilities in the city of Charleston."

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