Overcoming (Office Move) Hurdles
Why have we been so mum lately?
As you may know, we began the search for a new office space in May 2007 in response to our lease ending March 31, 2008. Everything was going smoothly: we found a great new building a few blocks from our current location, we hired the great Perkins & Will to do the design (which we love!) and we started lease negotiations with the new building's owner.
So why haven't we begun moving? And why haven't we discussed it until now?
In any business deal, there are always going to be hurdles to clear. As it turned out, our hurdles required us to step back and look at the entire track before proceeding. We encountered a few alterations to our plans that grounded us from planning our move and discussing it with the public.
After having our attorneys review the first draft of the lease, we sent it back to the landlord and waited for a response. After a month of waiting, we learned that the building's owner changed one key aspect of the lease, no longer guaranteeing our space for the full ten years as planned. Hurdle #1.
We then discovered that the building owner was in negotiations to sell the new building. Hurdle #2. The current owner asked us to hurry up with the lease-signing in order to close the deal before the sale went through. Hurdle #3.
We were left evaluating a new lease that could force us to negotiate with new owners and potentially move from our new space earlier than planned. Given our commitment to decisions based on thorough research, we needed time to carefully study our options and financial commitments.
As negotiations stalled, we realized time was running out. Our lease in our current space was ending March 31, 2008, and we had no definitive place to move to. Hurdle #4.
Looking Ahead
In light of these hurdles, we signed a one-year lease extension with our current space. This will give us time to finalize a lease with the new owners and complete construction on our space before we move. This delay has caused our designers at Perkins & Will and the contractors to have to wait for our notification to begin construction, product ordering, etc. We aren't the first client whose plans have made the designers and contractors put everything on hold and we won't be the last.
We recently received word that the building sale did go through and we're waiting to hear from the new owner's broker to get lease negotiations started again.
We still hope to proceed with the construction in the new building and move later this year. We look forward to continuing with our planned space that we fell in love with, improving our employee workspace and commitment to a more sustainable environment.















