MelroseINC recently celebrated the grand reopening of their flagship space on Melrose which was destroyed by looters during the civil unrest in 2020. Windsor Square resident founder and CEO Sandy Nasseri gave us a tour of the renovated space that had once been home to a Sardine factory when it was built in the 1920s.
Earlier this month, Nasseri hosted a celebratory ribbon cutting of the company’s new 5,000 square-foot state-of-the-art workshop and technology lab where her team of over 80 technicians and engineers develop and test new technologies.
Most of us are familiar with the retail side of the company, Melrose Mac, one of the only Apple Premier Partners in the US approved by the company to provide sales and support for the entire Mac lineup other than Apple stores. But entertainment industry professionals know them for the technology solutions they customize for a wide variety of content creators.
The newly renovated space is a testament to Nasseri’s perseverance and positivity.
Almost exactly four years ago, on May 30th around 6:45 p.m., the alarm went off at their flagship location on Melrose, just west of Highland Avenue. Nasseri told us she and her husband Sean watched for four and a half hours as looters ransacked the store and workshop. Even though, there was a television news chopper circling above the building for 45 minutes showing looters going in and out of the building, the police never came to stop the looting.
A gang member who watched the action on television drove to the shop and tossed an incendiary device into the lab filled with highly flammable equipment setting the whole space on fire.
“He just wanted to see what would happen,” Nasseri told us. The 21-year-old perpetrator was arrested months later. He was fined $6,000 and received a short jail sentence for a $10 million fire that affected the lives of 98 people as well as hundreds of customers whose equipment was destroyed. In addition, to the company’s equipment that was destroyed, there were also 500 computers in the lab at the time that belonged to customers.
“The first three days were incredibly challenging,” explained Nasseri. “We had to inform over 500 clients that their machines from our service department were stolen and traced somewhere in East LA using their tracking apps. Amid the chaos, we quickly set up a call center in the back of our office, which had mostly survived the fire with minor smoke damage. This space became our operations headquarters. Within 72 hours, we managed to coordinate calls and deliveries, getting back on track. Despite our vans being vandalized, they remained operational.”
After the fire, Nasseri hosted an artist to paint a mural on the plywood covering up the damaged building. She wanted the community to see something beautiful that showed the company was moving forward to rebuild their business and that they also supported the civil justice protests that were taking place at the time.
All of this unfolded during the pandemic further complicating and delaying the process of rebuilding the space.
“Despite these hurdles, we stayed in constant contact with our clients,” said Nasseri. “As an essential business, our staff came in every day, with our drivers ready to pick up and deliver equipment as needed.”
Thankfully a firewall protected part of the space and Melrose Mac was able to reopen in the undamaged part of the building relatively quickly. And, since the company has been in the space since 2003, Nasseri took the opportunity to rebuild and redesign the interior. She exposed the elegant bow truss ceiling that had been hidden for decades and clad the surfaces in stone and steel to increase fire safety and solar panels for greater energy efficiency. She even added a rooftop patio for staff use and special company events.
With COVID behind them, next came the industry strikes.
“While COVID posed significant challenges, it was the strike that hit us hardest,” Nasseri told us. “Watching our industry friends, clients, and colleagues lose their jobs and endure prolonged periods of inactivity was heart-wrenching. In our industry town, we are part of a vital ecosystem that supports everyone around us—from writers and actors to restaurants, lumber shops, hairdressers, and dry cleaners. The strike’s impact was profound, bringing our business to a standstill and affecting the broader community to which we are deeply connected.”
The impact of the strike is being felt. Nasseri has been able to keep most of her staff though production is down across the board. Fortunately, she has added to her client base with new partners like NASA, Cal Tech, Cedars-Sinai, AMGEN, and defense industry clients.
And the store has been completely renovated and modernized too. In addition, Nasseri has implemented a new 30-minute pick-up service.
“We understand that convenience is key for today’s consumers, so we’ve launched a campaign guaranteeing that your order will be ready within 30 minutes of being placed,” she explained. “For those who can’t visit our store in person, we offer a reliable door-to-door delivery service. Our primary goal remains to provide superior service with a client-centric approach.
