NEWTON — Rockport is finally stepping out of Reebok’s shadow.
The shoe company broke free from Reebok’s corporate structure in 2015, when Rockport merged with New Balance affiliate Drydock Footwear. But Rockport remained on Reebok’s Canton campus until it could find its own space.
Now, Rockport has a place to call its own: a 70,000-square-foot headquarters overlooking the Massachusetts Turnpike in West Newton. The company, co-owned by the investment firm Berkshire Partners and New Balance Holding Inc., moved its employees into the two-story building last month after extensively renovating the space.
The company now employs about 215 people at the headquarters, an increase of about 50 since the merger in mid-2015. That’s out of a global workforce of about 2,000. Each employee’s cubicle has a name tag that also features a shoe size and a character trait specific to them, phrases such as “beach lover” or “car fanatic.”
“This becomes more than just a building for us,” said Bob Infantino, a former Drydock executive who is now Rockport’s chief executive. “It becomes a cornerstone.”
Rockport fills a space that had been occupied by the design firm Continuum, which recently moved to the same block in South Boston’s marine industrial park where Drydock once operated. (Reebok, too, will soon move to Drydock Avenue.)
For Rockport, the new headquarters is the latest step in the company’s effort to build a brand distinct from Reebok, which had acquired Rockport two decades ago, and Reebok’s corporate parent, Adidas.
Rockport recently launched a marketing campaign pushing the “Made for Movers” catch phrase and has doubled its product development staff since the merger, Infantino said.
“We bought a brand that had a wonderful legacy, but it had gotten lost in the corporate structure [at Reebok and Adidas],” said Sue Dooley, senior vice president of global marketing at Rockport and a former Drydock employee. “It was a round number to them. To us, it is everything.”
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Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jonchesto.