Each month we’ll be sharing a new workplace design that we love. Use it as an inspiration for your own office as you gather ideas from cool office spaces around the world.

January’s design of the month – Silicon Valley Bank Offices in Portland, Oregon

The quick facts:

• Developed by Fennie+Mehl Architects
• Built in 2016
• 4,500 sqft
• Financial/Investments Industry

This space does not look or feel like you are in a bank at all, and that was the goal. It spans over the things they value most: excitement, trust, and collaboration. They truly brought this historical building to life, while revealing the brick and wood structures that had previously been painted over. Who would want to hide that?

Another cool thing about this space is the separation of the two floors. They strategically created an upstairs that is much more private and secure while the downstairs shows off that vibrant and open personality of the brand. We also love that they’ve chosen to display a painting from a local artist in their colors right outside of the office. It sets the tone right off the bat.

The subtle branding pieces throughout the office are just enough and eye-catching — especially the neon signs. Their reception area is extremely welcoming, the wall-mount displays throughout the space grab attention, and their game room is just awesome. They have a way of making the office open, yet private, with areas for every type of task and need. It’s not what you would expect, but once you’re in the space, you can see the culture clearly. This is truly a space that embodies company culture.

Features that stand out:

• Game room
• Large wall graphics
• Exposed brick
• Banquette seating
• Stone tile
• Glass walls

Image Courtesy of Office Snapshots

View more photos of Silicon Valley Bank’s office from Office Snapshots here

Have an office you’d like to see featured as Design of the Month? Let us know!

Open office spaces continue to rise in popularity. In fact, 70% of all U.S. offices have converted to open floor plans, and that number continues to grow (source: TalkBox). With everyone moving to this open space and feeling like it’s the way to go, they’re also looking to make their spaces efficient. However, there’s one thing that gets left off time and time again — having enough areas for people to make private phone calls.

You can never have enough phone booth rooms in your office.

Many companies are starting to realize there are no private areas within an open office space (seems obvious to us, but something that’s been overlooked during this trend). Phone booths not only give space to make phone calls quietly but can also give you that private area to allow employees to use however they wish. Not everyone thrives in an open space environment; some people need peace and quiet to focus and be productive, and an office space should provide that.

Phone booths provide sound insulation and acoustics. It’s an easy space to pop into to take a phone call that requires privacy, or to work on something that requires concentration. If you work in an open office, a phone booth can do away with your noise concerns for good. Today’s workplace strategies need to combine the benefits of collaborative and open spaces along with employees’ needs to work in a quiet environment.

Plan to have to have at least 3 phone booth rooms, no matter how big you are as a company.

Whatever you do, plan to have to have at least three phone booth rooms, no matter how big you are as a company. While open office spaces encourage collaboration and creativity, it’s important to remember that there are times and tasks that your team will require privacy. A phone booth will give your team space and peace of mind. Say goodbye to interrupted phone calls and make sure your office is stacked with phone booths.

If you don’t already have 3 phone booth rooms, we would love to take a visit to your space and find a solution that would work best for your team. Reach out to us here.

Growth. It’s something we all want for our business, but are we prepared for it?

We often run into companies that thought they planned for growth and designed their space accordingly, but as they actually grew, they had to completely demo their office space and start over. What are they doing wrong? They are thinking of spaces individually and addressing immediate needs – not planning a space for multiple functions and long term growth goals.

Here’s what preparing for growth looks like:

• The 1:1 model of 1 desk for every 1 employee is being replaced with a more fluid growth ratio, meaning you can grow without having to take on more space if you plan intelligently and creatively.
• Consider all the different ways you can configure open space in the design phase. Make plans for that space to be arranged two or three different ways allowing for future growth.
• Create all private offices the same size. Short term, you can use them as common conference rooms; long term, you can quickly and easily switch them to private offices as the company grows.

These are just a couple options – there are so many more!

In 2017, we saw that most companies don’t have a growth mindset when it comes to office space. They just think they have to take on more space as they grow and that’s not necessarily the case.

I would love to hear what you’ve done as your company has grown. Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn here or email me here.

(Rendering by Atomic Entertainment)

Call it a love note to intown creative arts.

The day after Valentine’s Day, the board of Invest Atlanta approved a $6 million tax incentive to redevelop the 27-acre historic Pratt-Pullman Yard site.

We can’t wait to see how Atomic Entertainment converts the century-old site into a $200 million creative arts campus with a film and television soundstage, outdoor concert venue, office space, restaurants, a boutique hotel plus residential with lots of greenspace. Atomic Entertainment bought the site in Kirkwood from the state of Georgia last year for $8 million, and hopes to open the first phase in 2020.

Fun fact: The Pratt-Pullman facility dates to the early 1900s when it was built for Pratt Engineering, which made equipment for sugar and fertilizer operations. Later it was used to make munitions during World War I.

The Pullman railroad passenger car company bought the complex in the 1920s to perform maintenance and refurbish train cars, but abandoned it in the 1970s. The state of Georgia tried to run a leisure dinner train service between downtown and Stone Mountain, but that venture folded after just a couple of years.

You might recognize Pullman Yard in movies such as The Hunger Games, The Fast and the Furious and Baby Driver. The complex was also a mecca for architecture aficionados and local graffiti artists who were drawn to its historical pedigree and gritty decay.

We look forward to seeing how this landmark transformation will inject activity and vibrancy to this long-neglected piece of history.

Discover how Transcend can find a creative space that inspires your employees and energizes your business by connecting with us here.

The post Intown Creative Arts Get Boost With $6 Million Pullman Yard Incentive appeared first on Transcend Commercial Real Estate Brokerage.

Should Amazon choose Atlanta for its $5 billion HQ2, the impact on the local real estate market could be even more profound than the 1996 Olympics.

The Olympics attracted new talent from other cities, transformed the region’s housing market and fueled a commercial real estate construction boom that lured many headquarters relocations. Metro Atlanta’s population has nearly doubled.

Another boom would surely occur if Amazon HQ2 comes to town, bringing 50,000 jobs with salaries averaging $100,000. Atlanta is among 20 cities under consideration, with a decision expected soon.

For context, Coca-Cola and its bottlers have about 7,500 employees in Atlanta. Winning Amazon HQ2 would be like adding six more Coca-Colas to the local economy.

Major selling points by city and state officials? A highly educated local workforce, direct flights to cities across the globe, affordable housing and rich economic incentives.

Those are some of the reasons Porsche executives cited when they chose Atlanta for a new $100 million headquarters after considering 70 locations, while Mercedes-Benz USA CEO Stephen Cannon said relocating to Atlanta would help “achieve the sustained, profitable growth.”

Beyond the direct boost from Amazon HQ2, Atlanta’s real estate market would also benefit from:

• Dozens of other companies opening offices in close proximity
• Expansion in coding and programming, creative and digital marketing, payment processing, IT security and other sectors that cater to Amazon
• More transportation and logistics jobs
• A wave of new startups with Amazon alums inevitable branch out and start their own ventures

All of that requires real estate.

Contact us here if you’d like to take a more proactively strategic approach to real estate.

The post What Would Amazon HQ2 Mean For Atlanta Real Estate? appeared first on Transcend Commercial Real Estate Brokerage.

It’s hard to tell which office buildings have the best connectivity, making it nearly impossible to determine which locations are a better fit for tenants with data-heavy needs.

Not anymore.

A startup called WiredScore evaluates capacity, infrastructure, number of carriers serving a building and whether additional providers could easily come in, then assigns a Wired Certification rating.

Building owners including Hines, Jamestown and Beacon Capital are using it to differentiate assets and identify areas for capital investment, while tenants and brokers can use it as a tool to choose space that meets their needs.

Here’s how it works: Landlords hire WiredScore, which sends telecom engineers (many of them former employees of AT&T, Level 3, etc.) to spend half a day at a building. They follow fiber lines coming in from the street, through the building to risers on each floor all the way onto the roof.

Only 10% of buildings get the highest Platinum rating. The others get Gold, Silver or Certified.

“It’s best to have the most internet service providers in a building so tenants can shop around for competitive pricing,” said JD Jeske, Head of Atlanta operations for WiredScore. “We’re providing transparency to something that’s really complicated much earlier in the leasing decision.”

WiredScore launches service in Atlanta this month. Local buildings that have already achieved Wired Certification include Ponce City Market (Platinum), 1180 Peachtree (Platinum), One Glenlake (Gold) and 1001 Perimeter Summit (Gold).

WiredScore was founded in 2013 by CEO Arie Barendrecht, a former management consultant who noticed friends often grumbled about lousy internet in their offices.

The company launched as a public/private partnership with The City of New York under the administration of former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a major advocate for innovation. Another early investor was Jared Kushner, who sold his majority stake to Bessemer Venture Partners and Fifth Wall Ventures last year.

Although WiredScore’s rating system doesn’t currently evaluate buildings based on common area Wifi or mobile phone coverage, those and other things like next-generation 5G ratings may be added to future scorecards.

“WiredScore will be part of that conversation going forward,” Jeske said.

If you’d like to explore space with the best connectivity, you can contact us here.

The post How Good is Your Building’s Internet? WiredScore Knows. appeared first on Transcend Commercial Real Estate Brokerage.

Transportation technology startup Shiplify was bursting at the seams, with three employees squished into a conference room as a makeshift office.

Traditional office layouts meant they couldn’t see each other, and didn’t interact very much during the day.

They needed room to grow, and wanted a modern loft style office with a mostly open floor plan that would encourage employees to have more impromptu chats about business.

Shiplify was interested in The Lumberyard Office Lofts on Ellsworth Boulevard in West Midtown, and had already gotten a proposal from the landlord that looked pretty good.

That’s when they engaged Transcend. We negotiated more favorable terms that improved the deal by high single digits in Shiplify’s favor, and covered costs to build out the space.

We also helped design the layout of their new office, handled IT and low voltage cabling, oversaw their move into the new space and coordinated punch list items.

“The whole process was simple and took almost zero of my time, and that’s important when you’re running a startup and you’re pressed for time,” said Dyrc McLeod, co-founder and Chief Financial Officer of 3-year-old Shiplify. “Now we have room to grow, and it helped open up conversations that otherwise wouldn’t happen because we couldn’t see each other before.”

Shiplify helps less-than-truckload carriers such as Old Dominion identify residential locations, churches, schools and other buildings that incur “accessorial charges” for pickup and delivery.

Their technology gives greater transparency on costs, more accurate invoices and fewer accounts receivable.

The post Shiplify’s New Digs at Lumberyard Boost Employee Engagement appeared first on Transcend Commercial Real Estate Brokerage.

(Photo courtesy of Urban Creek Partners)

An old abandoned granite quarry on Midtown Atlanta’s Westside is about to be transformed into a transit-driven mixed-use complex with office, residential, restaurants and retail.

Plus greenspace. Nearly 300 acres of open park space, athletic fields and walking trails that will be connected to the Beltline and the Bankhead MARTA station. The park includes an enormous reservoir that can hold up to 2 billion gallons of water — a month’s worth for the city.

The $400 million first phase of Quarry Yards will break ground this year, and will include:

• 575,000 square feet of Class A office space
• 75,000 square feet of restaurant and retail
• 850 residential units
• A 300-room hotel

Photo courtesy of Urban Creek Partners

When complete, Westside Park at Quarry Yards will be Atlanta’s largest, dwarfing the 185-acre Piedmont Park designed by the Olmsted Brothers, who took inspiration from their father, Frederick Law Olmsted, the designer of New York’s Central Park.

Quarry Yards is being developed by Urban Creek Partners, which includes former Atlanta Braves player Mark Teixeira, Jimmy Barry and Joel Bowman. The master plan was designed by HKS Architects and Populous.

The project will breathe new life into a formerly blighted area that was once the Bellwood Quarry, a dirty and dangerous operation where convicts on chain gangs cut and hauled granite from the earth.

Find out how Transcend can help your business find unique spaces such as this by contacting us here.

The post How $400 Million Quarry Yards Will Transform Atlanta’s Westside appeared first on Transcend Commercial Real Estate Brokerage.

(Photo courtesy of Related Companies and Oxford Properties Group)

The statistics for New York’s $18 billion Hudson Yards development are staggering.

The 28-acre site built atop 30 active train tracks required 300 support caissons that are 4 or 5 feet in diameter and 25,000 tons of steel.

There is also onsite power generation with continual consumption forecasting, real-time traffic monitoring and eco-friendly features like built-in heat control and ventilation plus recycled rainwater for irrigation that will save 10 million gallons per year.

More than 18 million square feet of office, residential and retail space will house tenants including BlackRock (850,000 SF), accounting firm EY (600,000 SF) and law firm Cooley LLP (130,000 SF), with 14 acres of parks and open public spaces sprinkled across the complex.

Hudson Yards is the largest private real estate development in American history, and New York’s largest since construction of Rockefeller Center.

We applaud the bold forward-thinking design of Hudson Yards, which is being developed by Related Companies and Oxford Properties Group, and we think developers Atlanta and other major cities should take inspiration from it for upcoming projects.

Thoughtful technology advancements like adaptive traffic controls and power demand forecasting have the power to influence behaviors and impact lifestyles.

It’s also a major culture shift that’s going to transform the way we think about commercial real estate: the building is but one piece of the puzzle.

Let’s talk about how Transcend can elevate your workplace. You can get in touch with us here.

The post What Atlanta Could Learn From NYC’s Hudson Yards appeared first on Transcend Commercial Real Estate Brokerage.

(Photo courtesy of Office Lovin: The Assemblage NYC’s Atrium)

Almost 40 percent of global CEOs say they’re concerned about the speed of technological change.

Only 10 percent of real estate executives say the same thing.

Wait, what?

Just 10 percent?!

That statistic jumped out at us in the recently released Emerging Trends in Real Estate study by the Urban Land Institute and PwC.

Why aren’t real estate executives more worried about disruptive technology?

Some simply don’t want to invest the time or money.

Some make “good enough” decisions like putting an IT professional whose main job is servers and software in charge of all technology operations, despite those being very different areas of expertise.

What does this say about our industry? Why isn’t there urgency to innovate and embrace better ways of doing things?

We’re already seeing intense competition from WeWork and office share services like LiquidSpace and PivotDesk, which pundits call the “Airbnb of offices.” Meanwhile, a slew of PropTech startups like deal pipeline firm VTS and deal management platform DealPath are trying to carve out niche expertise on core areas of CRE.

One thing that inspired us to start Transcend was wanting to create a place with a culture of innovation — around technology and everything else we do.

We custom built a platform called Elevate that helps us track and analyze lease proposals, and we often perform culture analysis for clients. We offer integrated space planning, project management and IT/cabling services, which takes the hassle out of relocations.

We don’t know what our industry will look like a generation from now. But we sure hope more than 10 percent of our peers start thinking about it. We certainly are.

If you want to talk about how Transcend can elevate your workplace, reach out to us here.

The post CEOs Worry About Disruptive Tech as CRE Executives Say “Meh” appeared first on Transcend Commercial Real Estate Brokerage.