Preview: Check Out Design Group's Royal Makeover of Former Appliance Store

The saying is: Those who can — do.

Royal Oak-based ISCG Inc. moved into the former Royal Radio building at 612 N. Main St. this month to show its clients what the award-winning design group is capable of doing.

"We took a gutted building and created a new office space for our 18 employees,” CEO Mary Ann Lievois said.

Now when a client wants to see an example of what ISCG can do, he or she looks no farther than the design group’s showcase office in the former appliance store, which was vacated in 2008. A workshop that was used to fix television sets is now a suite of offices using environmentally friendly demountable walls. A garage used to fix or replace car radios is now a colorful materials library.

While the employees are all settled in, the space is still a work in progress. Artwork still needs to be hung, landscaping will be added and a new sign for the exterior of the building is on the way.

The 11,000-square-foot transformation was also an opportunity for the design group to rebrand itself – from new furniture to new business cards – and introduce itself to the community, Lievois said. Though the company has been located in Royal Oak since 1991, formerly at the northeast corner of Woodward and Catalpa, Lievois is hoping the Main Street location will allow ISCG to have more of a presence in the community.

“We’ve already had someone walking by drop in and purchase a chair for a home office,” Lievois said. "We welcome traffic."

There are plans in the works to hold events in the company's spacious showroom to show off the space to the public.

Founded in 1976, ISCG provides design solutions – from facility assessment to furnishings procurement – for workplaces. With clients in education, government, healthcare and the auto industry, the company has received numerous honors including "Top 10 Best Places to Work" in southeast Michigan, "The 101 Best and Brightest Companies to Work for in Michigan," and Working Woman magazine's "Top 500 Women Owned Companies in America."