A few years ago I started reading about shared workspaces. In particular, I was interested in what Boris Mann started calling The Innovation Commons – a place for “creatives” to gather and feed off one another. These are physical places, with tables and chairs and Internet connections. They are perfect for programmers, designers, mobile workers, and others who don’t necessarily need office space of their own. I love the concept, and I am happy to see it catching on in a number of places. In Toronto, there’s the Centre for Social Innovation and in Vancouver, there’s WorkSpace. I took some time to visit WorkSpace when I was there a couple weeks ago.
Located at 21 Water Street in Gastown, WorkSpace is in a historic and unique area of Vancouver. It’s fourth floor view of the harbour is quite impressive. Sharon and I met Dane Brown, who gave us a quick tour and let us explore the place for a bit. There are small offices that can be used for breakout rooms, a larger meeting room, and lots of open space with tables and chairs. There are also private offices available, and a small cafe at the front. WorkSpace is even equipped with a shower!
Instead of renting space as you would in a traditional office building environment, WorkSpace is membership-based. For $95 per month, you can use the space after 4:30pm on weekdays and all day Saturday and Sunday. The rates go up from there. Full-time access costs $495 per month, and the private desks cost $595 per month. There are also drop-in prices available, starting at $25 for half a day. WorkSpace currently has about 70 members.
I think Edmonton could definitely use something like WorkSpace. Dickson and I originally got an office for Paramagnus because we knew that being in the same room together often has a really positive effect. We ended up getting rid of the office because we didn’t need it all the time, and it got to be too expensive. WorkSpace would have given us the best of both worlds.
There are lots of interesting, creative people in Edmonton working from their bedrooms and basements. Opportunities to connect are somewhat rare though, limited to events like BarCamp. I can’t even begin to imagine how positive something like WorkSpace would be!
I know I’d be a paying member if we had something like WorkSpace in Edmonton. What do you think? Would you find such a facility useful?
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For sure. Though per-day rates might be good in addition to monthly memberships. I want to go into an office sometimes – just not ALL the time. A soft couch, a 7-foot projector screen, and two friendly cats are pretty fun to work with too. 🙂
I think the drop-in rates are kind of what you’re looking for in a per-day rate. Hmm a projector and large screen would be a must!
Oops, somehow read past the part about the drop-in rates. 🙂
How big would you say the whole facility is (sq ft)?
Figure 15 bucks a sq ft / year for rent. Add 1000/month for ‘stuff’. See if the numbers make sense…
Yeah I’m really not sure how big it is.
I think it’s something the City of Edmonton or perhaps EEDC could support though, as it would definitely encourage and promote entrepreneurship in our city.
Of course it would definitely be interesting to see if it could be self-sustaining…
That is kind of what Scott is trying to do at Beans and Boardrooms. Not exactly the same though…
http://www.beansandboardrooms.com/
Cool link Cam, hadn’t seen that before. You’re right, not quite the same.
From Beansandboardrooms.com’s:
“# Your first 100 pages of printing / copying per month FREE (value $120)”
That’s some expensive copying…
Does that place actually exist? There’s a loction, but only a rendering of it. And there’s no pricing info at all, which is weird
I believe it is currently under construction, I’m not sure how far off it is from being finished. Hence the artists rendering.
The Beans and Boardrooms concept seems interesting – too bad the blog isn’t updated and it’s hard to judge exactly what the status of the company is. I came across a link a while back to another place that looked interesting Axis Cafe
Not as good as a space for offices, but a good option for an occasional group project.
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