News
If George Jetson Designed Offices
September 20, 2012
| We're getting a look down the timeline at Bisnow's Office of the Future event at The Fairmont on Sept. 28. (You can join us. Here's how.) Of course, since George Jetson is from the future, he'd probably just call it ?the office.? Here are three of our panelists. |
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| Duncan Logan is CEO of RocketSpace—founded in January 2011 as an accelerator for seed-funded tech startups. RocketSpace has one startup per week raising a round of finance—a "good caliber of success"—and has a large volume of startups that are now partnering with large corporations like Turner, Sony, and AB InBev. The company's 43k SF campus occupies two buildings (181 and 183 Fremont St), housing anywhere from 110 to 150 companies, and Duncan tells us one objective is to secure a bigger space. With applications coming in daily from around the world, the accelerator is ?pretty strict? on who it lets in. (It shares an ethos with treehouses everywhere.) RocketSpace?s alumni include Uber, Zappos, Pocket Gems, Podio, and Zaarly. |
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| Yesterday, we spoke with our moderator, Allen Matkins partner Lee Edlund, who says the Bay Area market for commercial leasing, purchases, and sales has been extremely hot. He's riding the wave and doing deals with Internet-related companies on both sides of the table. Lee says building owners in the more traditional office markets are making efforts to change their way of thinking to attract tech users. ?You're seeing a lot of landlords negotiating to get tenants to come into buildings downtown, and not just the brick-and-mortar buildings." This also means being flexible on TIs as well as occupancy ratios. When he's not doing deals, the baseball fan roots for our teams on both sides of the bay and would ?love to witness another Bay Bridge World Series in the near future.? |
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| We also spoke yesterday with GCI General Contractors president James Jenkins. The company recently completed sizable spaces that depart from tradition, such as a 40k SF project for London-based United Business Media that went from a high workstation, multi-office, and cubicle-heavy environment to an open plan. "They created this new space where there's no offices,? and earned LEED Platinum, he says. GCI's also been doing work for Silicon Valley firms like Google and YouTube as well as tech companies in the City such as Salesforce and Velti. He notes many offices call for operable walls, a lot of glass for transparency, and marker board. ?Every surface is a writing surface these days for idea generation.? James grew up in Nashville (but don't sing him any country and western; he's not a fan) and has lived in the Bay Area for 30 years. In his free time, the avid skier likes to spend time in the Sierras with his wife and two kids. |
