About a half a year ago our company made a decision that we wanted to start to look for new office space in downtown Winnipeg. We looked for a good 6 months before we found the right spot and we were pretty lucky to find a gem of a building like the one we are currently in. It’s a heritage building that was built in 1901, price to build at that time was $6,000, how costs have changed. I have to admit I was not convinced that moving downtown was the right place for our company. I had always worked in the burbs and enjoyed the easy ride to work, easy parking and certainly not paying for parking. However, when I talked to several companies that work downtown, they all told me that they would not work anywhere else and their employees love being downtown. This intrigued me and I wanted to investigate further. Finally it came to me that downtown was the place to be for our company. Now that we have been in our new space for a month I get what the others were talking about. The key advantages of being downtown in my observation are:
- The downtown area is vibrant and has a lot of energy
- Its a great place to network with people, I walked to the bank the other day and it took me an hour because I stopped and talked to 5 people I knew and had not seen for a while (possible clients)
- Downtown is a central spot to attract employees from all over the city
- We are closer to all our customers and prospects, so the commute to meetings and networking lunches etc is reduced
- More options for restaurants to take clients to or go out with staff.
After a short while I now understand the downtown area, if you work downtown you enjoy being downtown and you like to work with others that are in the downtown area. Its interesting in the last year my accountant’s firm moved from downtown to the suburbs. He asked me what I thought of this move and I said well I like this better as I did not like to commute downtown to see him. But now that I am downtown, I would rather his firm be downtown as I am walking distance to their old location. So you have to ask yourself is it important for your company to work with companies that are located downtown, if you do then the address for you is in the downtown area. If you work with companies that work downtown in other cities then they understand and possibly expect you to work downtown as well.
All items above are important to our company and we are certainly enjoying being downtown so far and I think we are here to stay.
