Office Hunters
Once we let the idea sink in that we had to move, we immediately kicked into researching our options. What space is available now and what is really going to work for ERG as we usher in this new era?
When we came to 4th Street to do work in 2004, we knew at our core ERG believed in developing, so we wanted space to create as well as a space to teach. That has not changed. ERG continues to develop and we take pride in differentiating projects and content for our customers. We also know there is power in teaching ALL learners. Wherever we landed in the summer of 2019 would have to include room for both developing and teaching.
So off we went to hunt office space.
The first place we toured was an adorable house off Reynolda Road (closer to where we all live) owned by Wake Forest University. If ERG moved there, we would share the house with a few other people, and the price tag was exactly what we were looking for. We could still work and develop, but there was no real space for learning of larger groups. And the other tenants needed absolute quiet during certain times of the day for their services. There was a nice parking lot, updated bathrooms, and a cute kitchenette, not to mention a very convenient location.
The second place we looked at was in the Innovation Quarter. For our non-Winston-Salem friends, this is the heart and soul of the growth in our downtown area right now and includes academic institutions as well as private business and other organizations. There is a lot of creative energy in this space – not to mention a park and really yummy food – but it comes with a higher price tag due to the location and amenities. We toured some space that included less work space than what we have now, but the rent would include some flexible use space for different sized groups. This space offered flexibility, but it didn’t offer a parking lot so we would have to navigate the classic downtown parking dilemmas.
The third property was a small house closer to the medical park areas in Winston-Salem. The house included a small parking lot, our own kitchen, multiple rooms for desks, and a small space for gathering a group of people. This house was for sale, not for rent, but with today’s commercial market prices, the mortgage payment could end up being less than the monthly rent in other spaces. In order to make it work for ERG, some work would be needed on the house. We would possibly need to replace the roof, convert it from a hair salon to workable space, and it was in a completely different area of town than our current office.
So we had three very different viable choices:
- Wake Forest house
- Innovation Quarter
- Hair salon house
For obvious reasons, we decided the Wake Forest house probably was not the right fit. ERG is a lot of things, but quiet is not really one of them! We wanted to make sure we could talk freely and even have meetings without being bad housemates. The hair salon house is a financial deal – but comes with more responsibility than we really want at this juncture. So, we leaned in to all the creative energy and chose the Innovation Quarter!
Beginning in July, ERG will be the new kids on the block at Bailey Power Plant and we could not be more excited!
