Element breaks ground on expansion

Rich Palzewic

Staff

September 7, 2026

DE PERE – Since 2003, President Nikki Peroutka said Element has been obsessed with finding a better way to build a high-performing culture.

With growing demand and more space needed to meet its clients’ needs, she said the advertising agency at 2081 Profit Place in De Pere recently broke ground on a 2,980-square-foot addition. 

Peroutka said the two-story office expansion is thoughtfully designed to match the existing facility.

“The addition will include new office space, a conference room, restrooms, a mezzanine, a parking lot expansion and enhanced landscaping improvements,” she said.  

Peroutka said construction is expected to be completed by the end of the year or early next year, though the timeline could shift depending on how the project progresses.

“We were supposed to break ground in early August, but we had a few things to iron out,” she said. “We are ambitious in our timeframe. Bayland Buildings is handling the expansion, and they are great to work with.”

Peroutka – whose husband, Lance, started Element in 2003 – said expansion plans “might even go back a decade.”

Ten years ago, she said Element – which was previously featured by The Business News in its Oct. 19, 2023 issue – was running out of office space, so the firm leased additional space in the Fox Valley region.

“We opened a second location in Neenah, and then, of course, as every story goes, COVID-19 hit four years later,” she said. “Because of COVID, we ended up closing that second location. During that time, we hired some of our remote employees. We didn’t need as much physical space, but now we’ve kind of come full circle and need more space.”

As the company grew and more employees returned to the office, Peroutka said managing two separate spaces became increasingly difficult. 

“It wasn’t just what we noticed about our employees but also the culture across two physical spaces,” she said. “We eventually decided our best next move – given everything that we learned – was to have everybody all under one roof and expand our current footprint.”

Peroutka said the expansion will not only serve as a catalyst for more growth, but also allow for more team collaboration and on-site visits for Element’s clients.

“We don’t have any plans to stay the same size,” she said. “The addition serves as a place to add employees and clients. One of the things we’ve always really loved doing is making sure we invite clients into our space. I think clients enjoy having a place where they can be creative and work with our teams.”

When the addition is completed, Peroutka said she envisions it being a place where employees want to show up daily.

“I think there is a lot of pride in having employees who want to show up to see their coworkers and do good work,” she said. “The addition will allow us to have a bigger team, more space and more clients, but I really want to create a place where people can be creative and collaborate.”

Peroutka said the goal is for the new space to feel like a natural extension of Element’s existing office, rather than a separate area. 

“It’s not meant to be an addition that just separates the old part and the new part,” she said. “The idea with the design is to really make sure it all feels like one cohesive space.”

Peroutka said the same fundamentals Element was founded on 23 years ago still hold true today.

“We carry those original fundamentals through today in how we approach all of our clients’ needs,” she said. “Fundamentally, Element remains unchanged from what Lance founded the company as.”

Peroutka said Element takes a lot of pride in being a “one-stop shop.”

“I remember talking to a client who was struggling because he was working with four or five different agencies,” she said. “One place was doing his website, another was responsible for the design, another doing PR, etc. He spent all his time dealing with these different agencies instead of doing what he wanted to do for the business.”

Peroutka said that was an “aha” moment for the Element team.

“We then moved to becoming a more fully integrated agency,” she said. “We offer all of those services under one roof, so now marketing directors can work solely with us and not five separate ones.”