Riverfront “pioneer” celebrates milestone

They’ve been in business for 45 years, and that business has been run out of a facility on the Wilmington Riverfront for the past 25 years.

 

Mitchell Associates, a design consulting firm based in Wilmington, will celebrate its history with An Evening of Arts tonight at their facility on the Avenue of the Arts along the Wilmington Riverfront.  Mitchell Associates president Louis Rosenberg says when the company first decided to move to the Riverfront, it was a bit lonely.  “The Mayor had referred to us as pioneers, and we quickly informed him that we were the scouts, because we were here long before anything else,” Rosenberg said.

Over the years, the company has done interior design work for major companies in Wilmington and beyond.  The group has also done some design work for WHYY in both Philadelphia and Delaware.  Rosenberg says over the last 25 years they’ve been on the Riverfront, the company has watched a number of companies trade hands and merge in Wilmington, especially the banks.  “We’ve been fortunate that we’ve been able to work along with all of them,” he says.

Since moving to the Riverfront, they’ve had a lot of companies follow their lead.  “When we came down here, we didn’t expect that we were going to have a big following.  We did because I think artists always help get neighborhoods to move along.  If you look at Soho in New York or look at Northern Liberties in Philadelphia, a lot of these places were really run down, and then little by little, once the art community started moving in, they developed.”  

The company will display artwork created by employees at tonight’s anniversary celebration.