Vancouver Workspace co-working facility closing. Not surprised.
19Aug2009 Filed under: ramblings, vancouver Author: MikeAccording to a recent tweet, the Vancouver BC Workspace co-working facility is closing its doors later this month. It’s definitely a blow to the burgeoning tech community in Gastown, but it really doesn’t come as a surprise to me.
I’ve wanted Workspace to succeed ever since I first heard about it. Unfortunately, I never did much to contribute to their success. I’ve always found Workspace’s membership plans to be too pricey for what you actually got. A “Part Time” plan, which gives access 2 business days of the week & after-hours, is $345/month. Full-time 7×24 access is $495/month. Neither of these plans include a dedicated workstation – just access to the shared workspace environment. A full dedicated desk runs $595 a month.
While there are no other dedicated co-working facilities in Vancouver (that I’m aware of), there are other businesses that offer small-office rentals & dedicated workstations for similar pricing. Take The Network Hub for example, where you can get a dedicated desk for $250-$350 a month with access on any business day (not sure about evenings / weekends). Other “office in a box” solutions like Newlook Business Centre offer full offices for $550ish (caveat: I’ve never been to either The Network Hub nor Newlook Business Centre, so I can’t say whether they’re good or not).
Given the state of the economy, it’s no surprise to me that entrepreneurs are skipping out on Workspace rent and choosing instead to avail themselves of free wifi in cafes and libraries around the city. With more and more people doing this, these cafes are becoming places to network with people in your field. I can’t count how many times in the past few months I’ve seen tweets from folks announcing that they’re working at cafe X that afternoon, should anyone else want to drop by & co-work. These are folks that a year or two ago would post similar tweets with Workspace as the destination.
What does surprise me about Workspace’s closure is how it caught the rest of the Vancouver tech community off-guard (at least, those posting to Twitter about it). Did they not see this coming? I love the tech community in this city, but I have to say that it reminds me of the good ol’ pre-dot-com-crash days in Ottawa. Lots of parties & networking events, but not much in the way of substance.
Web 2.0 startups are a dime-a-dozen here, but just how many of them have gone on to be smash successes? It’s been a long time since Vancouver has produced a Flickr-like success story as far as I can tell.
If this post is coming across as negative, well, like I said: maybe I’m just jaded by my experiences in Ottawa. I really do love the community here and I’d love to see more success stories out of Vancouver. I just feel like the community is getting caught up holding CampOfTheWeek and StartupLaunchParty3.0, and not paying enough attention to the little details, like a beloved co-working space falling by the wayside.
3 Responses to “Vancouver Workspace co-working facility closing. Not surprised.”
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My name is Mike Kelly. I'm a Vancouver-based technologist and non-practicing physicist. strangely entangled is my home base on the internet. If you look hard enough you'll find some blog postings, articles, photos and other stuff I thought might be interesting
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Muskie
October 2nd, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Maybe… But Workspace did some good and for a for-profit venture tha can’t always we said. Even before the sudden demise the idea of co-location, shared workspace, and incubators have been talked about. W2, Bootup Labs, Vancity, Recollective have been part of the conversation which continues Thursday Octobar 8th.
Mike
October 5th, 2009 at 9:43 am
Muskie: That only reinforces my argument – the Vancouver “tech” community (and I use “tech” loosely here – it’s more of a social media marketing community that happens to use computers) spends an awful lot of time dreaming up Camps, Parties, Social Wing-Dings, Accelerators and Incubators.
I’m not saying that Workspace and co-location/shared workspaces *aren’t* a good idea. On the contrary, I think they’re an essential part of the “freelancer ecosystem”. I’m not surprised that membership/attendance was down due to the economy, but Workspace could hardly help that.
I’m just surprised that (apparently) nobody saw it coming.
Muskie
November 5th, 2009 at 10:48 am
Whenever a business is sold by the founders the new owners might not have the same connection to the business. I think for coworking you have to do it because you believe in it, not because you think it is an easy way to make money.
I agree there seem to be a lot of stuff going on, when two developers could just suck it up and code YouTube above a pizzaria. The green community seems to have even more mixers and meetings, I joke they’re going to use the world’s supply of oxygen before we run out of oil.
We’re going to provide coworking space at 163 East Pender. We hope to have people in there this month. We will also make the space available for events and meetings privately to non-profits and corporations. We’re going to start with just a one size fits all flat 200 dollar rate. We’re not guaranteeing 24 availability or weekend access, but it should be possible to put an 8, 12, or longer day in downstairs.
Send people my way if you know anyone who might be interested.