Southtree doubles in size on Southside of Chattanooga

Friday, January 1, 1904

photo Kirk Ellis scans negatives at Southtree.
photo Adam Roark works on transfering 8 mm movies to DVD at Southtree. The company converts old photos, film and slides into digital content.

HOW THEY'LL GROWExisting location: The company's headquarters and drop-off location remains at 1301 Cowart St.Secondary location: Southtree's newest processing location is 1410 Cowart St.Source: Southtree.com

Southtree, the Chattanooga-based business that converts old photos, film and slides into more easily stored digital content, is doubling in size.

The privately held company is adding 20 more workers to its staff for a total of 40, after April's revenues were its highest ever.

Southtree's swelling staff has also forced it to add a secondary downtown location on Cowart Street, where the company plans to focus future expansion efforts as needed, said Nick Macco, co-founder of Southtree.

"We have another 1,200 square feet there, and we're talking about renting out the rest of the building for 3,500 square feet total -- that'd be doubling our space."

Macco, along with co-founder Adam Boeselager, want to stay in downtown Chattanooga no matter how big they get, and are hoping to avoid moving out to an industrial park, he said.

"We will probably have to separate production from office work, but my hope is we can find a place where production can exist downtown," Macco said.

Revenue doubled to $1 million in 2012, officials said, and will likely double again in 2013. The company is currently exploring retail and marketing partnerships that could allow customers to drop off their old videotapes, film, photos and slides at physical locations.

"Some of those are starting to materialize, and we're starting to hammer out details of how that will work or function," Macco said.

Contact staff writer Ellis Smith at esmith@timesfree press.com or 423-757-6315.