Buying & Selling a Business: Reflecting on Two Eras of The Atrium

It’s been eight years of The Atrium, split into two distinct eras with founder Brandon Olsen and current owner Elle Crevits. This is how they made selling and buying a business into their greatest opportunity.

Anyone who’s ever worked from home has experienced the moment where they need to get out of the house. In 2018, Brandon Olsen decided to do something about it.

As a creative and energetic person, Brandon wanted to find an inspiring office space rather than work at home in isolation. After touring several unsatisfying options in downtown St. Thomas, a business partner suggested creating a coworking business. They had a website up and running the next night, before they’d even found a building, and things moved forward quickly.

Brandon didn’t just want to create an office. He wanted to create a space with a "wow factor" that would make people feel motivated simply by walking in. Anyone who visited The Atrium’s first home on Princess Ave can tell you that it worked. Between the bright sky light and the iconic plant wall, the space attracted a host of remote workers and entrepreneurs from different backgrounds and industries. On paper, Brandon’s vision was a success.

But it wasn’t quite that simple on the back end.

“The very first day The Atrium opened, I realized I was in the wrong business,” Brandon says. Laying the foundations had been exciting, but the day-to-day operational work of running it long-term wasn’t for him. “I’m more of a free spirit, and I discovered my skillset was actually building spaces and understanding what the vision for something could be.”

Despite the mismatch, Brandon and his partner Emily successfully operated the business for four years. In the first two months of 2020, The Atrium began generating a modest profit—and you can probably guess what happened next. COVID-19 hit, and that revenue dried right out. Lockdown wasn’t exactly conducive to a business model founded in shared space, and a careful negotiation with his landlord helped them ride out the shutdown

By the time doors opened again, there was an unexpected perk for the business: remote work had been normalized, and the demand for coworking spaces was higher than ever. But Brandon and Emily were burnt out. With a third child on the way and a lease that was about to expire, they decided to sell. 

Enter: Elle Crevits.

As an entrepreneur and long-time business advisor, Elle had already built a career helping businesses launch and sustainably scale. With the St. Thomas SBEC, she coordinated programs that helped local business owners develop business plans and secure crucial funding. With a keen eye on St. Thomas’s growth, she saw nothing but opportunity in The Atrium.

“I think my first line to Emily when I met her was, ‘Hey, nobody knows about this place. You should really do something about that,” Elle says. “And then her response was, "Actually, we're looking to sell." And two months later it was mine. That's how fast it happened.”

Despite the fact that the founders were ready for a change, Elle emphasized that the space did not feel neglected or sad when she first encountered it; the aesthetic vision Brandon had built was palpable, and had attracted a dedicated membership. Elle’s existing skillset—serving businesses, building community, and marketing—made it a natural fit.

Brandon and Emily were up front about the fact that the business wasn’t worth a large sum on paper, and its financials wouldn’t have impressed a traditional buyer scrutinizing the books. For them, their primary goal in selling was to recover some of the investment that came with opening the business.

This kept the price accessible for Elle. The Atrium was at roughly break-even when she acquired it, which gave her a functional platform rather than a blank slate. Better yet, Brandon and Emily had already built the systems that made the business easy to run. Elle was taught everything she needed to operate The Atrium in approximately three hours.

“I saved myself four years by buying into a business,” Elle says. “When you’re starting from scratch, there are so many lessons you have to learn. But when you can inherit somebody's lessons, somebody's investment, somebody's different skill set, you can actually go way further, way faster. The place was set up, so it was already functional. And because I didn’t spend all my time developing those systems, I had the energy to take it to the next level.”

And she has.

Over the past four years, The Atrium has thrived. In 2025, Elle received the Under 40 Leadership Award for her work with The Atrium, and was a finalist for The Pitch 2026. In June 2026, she bought the legendary “new building” at 581 Talbot Street and renovated it with the Campbell Building Group. It doubled the square footage, and is now home to 113 active members. Every day, people make the connections that define the next stage of their business.

Brandon’s founding vision took on its own life, but his part in The Atrium didn’t end with the sale. One of the explicit terms of the sale was that Brandon and his co-founders received lifetime Flex Memberships at The Atrium. That wasn’t a concession on Elle’s part; as the buyer, she didn’t want them to disappear from the community they had founded. As Brandon moved into commercial reality, she got a front row seat to his growth in exactly the kind of career that suits his greatest strengths and desires.

“Brandon was with me the first time I walked through the new building. He helped me buy it, and has taken on a new office here,” Elle says. “It’s all come so full circle, and it’s beautiful to feel how we can continue to support each other and be a part of what the other is doing.”

“Elle has exceeded every expectation,” Brandon says. “She’s crushing it. She’s developed a community, bought a building that can give the business longevity, and created so much value without losing the aesthetic. What she’s done with The Atrium is everything I ever wanted, leveled up.”

As of September, Elle will have owned The Atrium for four years—matching exactly the four years Brandon held it, and marking the business's eight-year anniversary. Two distinct eras, one community of your favorite coworkers.

Curious to see The Atrium for yourself? Schedule a tour.