19 April 2010

Affordable office space for freelancers

| NathanaelB
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If you’re a freelancer or self-employed professional and currently work from home then you might be interested in Canberra Coworking.

Canberra Coworking is based on the global “Coworking” concept: basic, minimal cost, commercial office space where freelancers can come and work when they want with other professionals and escape the isolation of working at home alone.

Canberra Coworking is run not-for-profit, so the costs are a fraction of what you’ll get with serviced office providers. There’s no receptionist, no phones … just a desk, wireless Internet and a powerboard.

There’s more information including prices for casual hourly use and monthly desk rentals on my website and if you have any questions or would like to lease a desk then please contact me.

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screaming banshee said :

Mine was at canberra tech park in watson, there were several other business centres at Downer, Red Hill, and Erindale but I’m not sure if they are still running.

Hi Mate,

Sorry to bring this old thread back to life.

What would be the cost to rent out one of the offices at http://www.canberratechpark.com ? I do realise that they they are all in different sizes , but any ball park figure ?

Cheers.

screaming banshee7:53 pm 25 Sep 12

Mine was at canberra tech park in watson, there were several other business centres at Downer, Red Hill, and Erindale but I’m not sure if they are still running.

Sorry to open up an old thread, but we’re offering coworking in our Mitchell office. Please see website for rates, inclusions, etc.

http://www.t8photography.com/Coworking-Office

embilly – are you still looking for some office space? i may be able to assist.
0402 013 837 Dom

screaming banshee said :

Hmmm, for around $350 per month I get a permanent desk that can be used 24/7, with a 10sqm room around it to store all my crap, that includes free access to a meeting room and kitchenette. Another $150 odd per month gives me BH receptionist, parcel receipting and pickup, guest welcoming, faxes, and my own dedicated phone number answered for me if I’m not in to take the call.

Of course I did have to supply my own desk.

Seriously though, when I was looking around at different options for office space the sort of pricing you have there may be suitable for a site in the middle of Sydney or perhaps at a push Civic, but as one of the other posters have stated in Mitchell its a little out of the way.

Screaming banshee would love to know where you got space at this cost, could you fill us in (looking for exactly what you describe!)

Thanks for your feedback everyone – I’ll pass it on to the business who sub-leases the office to us and set the prices. I am trying to find sponsorship so we can subsidise the rent and cover our set-up costs which have been incorporated into the current pricing structure.

Aurelius: I didn’t mention the address but there is a photo of the location on Buckland Street on the page I linked to, and I tagged my post with ‘Mitchell’.

This is our first location – I hope once we gain traction we can set up spaces in Civic and southside but we don’t have the cashflow to secure a lease on our own so we need businesses who have some spare office space they can sublet.

Harvyk1: Perhaps you can drop me an email? I’d be interested to know what other options are that I don’t currently know about so I can compare: nboehm@purecaffeine.com – thanks.

screaming banshee12:18 pm 19 Apr 10

Hmmm, for around $350 per month I get a permanent desk that can be used 24/7, with a 10sqm room around it to store all my crap, that includes free access to a meeting room and kitchenette. Another $150 odd per month gives me BH receptionist, parcel receipting and pickup, guest welcoming, faxes, and my own dedicated phone number answered for me if I’m not in to take the call.

Of course I did have to supply my own desk.

Seriously though, when I was looking around at different options for office space the sort of pricing you have there may be suitable for a site in the middle of Sydney or perhaps at a push Civic, but as one of the other posters have stated in Mitchell its a little out of the way.

I have to agree with above posters: these prices are just not competitive with other options that are much closer to the heart of business and government/clients.

Good luck, but you might struggle for clients.

The rates for a desk seem ok but $50 an hour for a meeting roof! Ouch,
Canberra community centres like the Belconnen Community Centre has meeting
rooms for under $15 an hour!

Congratulations to Deano above for working out the suburb, coz it seems the OP is keeping it secret (I presume).

The Coworking space is open 9:00am to 5:00pm Monday to Friday

One of the reasons I freelance is not being restricted to regular business hours. Being located in Mitchell means you are not close to either where people live or where the majority of clients are. This means that to use your facility I would have to travel further and always in peak hour traffic.

Pricewise you aren’t all that competitive either, even with the coworker networking grooviness.

I do wish you luck, but I do think your prices are too high compared to some of the other options available out there.

I won’t mention any company names, but I used to use a virtual office service, which provided ad-hoc access to it’s offices in Canberra (first hour free each day, it was rare I was in there longer), plus I used to get 3 days of access to a fully serviced office outside of Canberra for less per hour than what your charging here.

And with that I did get a receptionist to answer my calls.

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