Here at Interplan, we work with multiple clients every day who are in the process of moving their businesses from a current location to a new one. It’s our business. It’s our expertise. We help these clients assess their current office environment. We ask what’s been working well in it and what they would want to change in their new space. We ask them about their work culture and explore how the design of their new space can express and support it. We ask them about the mission of their business and develop ways that their new work space can reinforce this mission and maybe even make it clearer or easier to achieve. We ask the direct statistical questions - How many employees do you have now? How many employees must be accommodated in the new space? How & When do these people work and what size of workstations or offices will they require? What are the ancillary spaces your company needs (conference rooms, eating areas, touch down stations, libraries, computer rooms, storage areas, etc.)? And the big questions – What’s your budget? AND When do you need to move into this new space?
We do this all day, every day. What we don’t do every day is turn the spotlight on ourselves, ask these same questions and have to give ourselves the answers that are necessary to move our 20-person firm into new office space!
Interplan is currently about halfway through our current office move process. We began in early 2024 and are planning to be in our new office space at the beginning of 2025. We have done the hard work of developing our program (think of this as creating the shopping list of needs in and around the new space). Criteria was established for evaluating potential spaces available in the real estate market. Our budget was developed and a time table mapped out for the move. We have identified the building that we are going to be moving into and have designed our own interior environment to meet both our pragmatic and aesthetic requirements. Materials and finishes have been selected and decisions have been made about what furniture will be moving with us, items that will be new purchases and custom built in features. The drawings of our new space have been submitted for permit review by the local jurisdictions. We have selected a General Contractor and we are close to beginning the actual construction of the space. A lot has been done and there’s still a lot left to do.
Over the next few months we will be posting entries that will describe in more detail the actions and steps that we have already taken and that have been briefly listed above. We will also share current challenges and progress as we take our own project over the finish line. It’s not often we experience ourselves what we guide our clients through every day. We hope you will find these posts enlightening and entertaining as we walk a mile in the other guy’s shoes!
