[portland] Cubespace to close unless buyer found...

[Jeff Rush]

kirby urner wrote:
> On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 6:14 PM, Joshua D. Drake <jd at commandprompt.com> wrote:
>>
>> You either pay the bills or you don't. It is really that simple.
>> Is it unfortunate that they are going down? Of course. It doesn't change
>> the reality.

Pricing for something like rent isn't really that black and white.  The price
is a fabrication between the renter and the landlord, based on many
assumptions.  It's not like buying a commodity at a store.  And there are
significant legal/opportunity costs to changing out tenants that might dwarf
the amount they would lose through re-negotiating a few months of rent in good
faith.  They know the economy is tight and it is very unlikely there is
another tenant ready to move in at equal or higher rent.

There's a place near me, a former very popular restaurant hooked into
community activities (Lions club, Rotary club, etc.) and a breakfast/lunch
meeting place for business dealings for years.  The landlord wanted to double
their rent.  The tenant sought something more reasonable and the landlord
would not budge.  The place was vacated, then left derelict for four years.
It got run-down and eventually had to be ripped out and rebuilt, where it sat
empty for another two years.  It just got rented this month (hence why it's on
my mind).  Silly landlord lost tons of money playing hardball and the
restaurant owner left the business altogether.


> Still kind of ironic, given coworker movement is gallivanting across
> the nation, e.g. NYT:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/jobs/17pre.html?_r=1&8dpc)?
> 
>> Besides you could always just use the local library.

Not quite - the value of coworking is not just having a place to sit and surf,
but benefiting from the synergy of mingling with others with great ideas.  A
coworking place opened up on Wednesday of this week very close to me.  Several
of us in the Dallas Python usergroup took a tour, for potentially holding
meetings there.  While I have a nice office at home, I am tempted to join the
coworker facility because there are people of different backgrounds whom I
would enjoy working with.  The place is owned by an AI company in the building
and they are looking to open up their tech to others and explore spin-off
opportunities that use it.  There are also several graphic artists and
marketing advisers joining and I could use some informal time with them around
the ping-pong table or water cooler.  http://companydallas.com/

I am seeing what Kirby is seeing though, a growing swell in the existence
coworking facilities.  Another one opened in Dallas two months ago,
http://cohabitat.us/ and one in Austin http://www.conjunctured.com/.  I'm not
yet sure what forces are driving the trend though.

-Jeff