An office close to home
Co-working space coming to Rancho Viejo commercial center south of Santa Fe
The advantages for independent contractors to work out of their homes are obvious: no boss peering over your shoulder (unless your spouse runs the show), working in your pajamas, and never being far from the refrigerator for a snack or the couch for a quick nap — to name but a few.
However, owner Jay Winter and leasing agent Paul Duran of the soon-to-open The Offices at Rancho Viejo, figure the advantages of home offices are often overshadowed by the disadvantages. For example, the cat crawling across your computer keyboard wiping out two weeks of work, trying to determine when the cable guy is supposed to show up and taking phone calls from your teen daughter’s wannabe punk-rocker boyfriend — to name just an annoying few.
The two are confident they will have little trouble leasing the already built out 6,000-square-foot building — previously ground zero for the subdivision’s various incarnations of developers. The offices venture is a project of Winter’s Palace Avenue Development LLC.
The building, at 55 Canada del Rancho, empty for about five years, is the anchor for the sprawling subdivision’s only commercial center, which includes the Village Market, run by Winter’s wife, Jane.
Duran said designers initially planned the building and surrounding area as the subdivision’s community center, but it never evolved in that direction. Businesses that once occupied the complex ranged from a fitness center to a title-insurance firm and asphalt paving company. Two coffee shops have come and gone.
The remaining tenants along with the Village Market include the homeowners association management companies for the Rancho Viejo North and South associations.
Winter said the building for The Offices at Rancho Viejo is already configured for about 20 workstations, including five private offices that might work for a two-person business. And Winter and Duran weren’t interested in various bites they had that would have required an expensive reconfiguration of the space, especially when they felt they could tap into the potential clients in the homes surrounding them.
“I don’t want to tear this whole thing out right now,” said Winter, president of Blue Chip Insurance Co. “But finding a 6,000-square-foot office tenant in Santa Fe right now is really tough. There’s a bunch of that out there now.”
“There are 2,500 homes in this area, and a lot of people have home offices,” Winter said. Added Duran: “So the concept was to create a complex of offices where people who work at home would come in and network with other like-minded people [and still] be within walking distance of their homes. “
Duran said he and Winter will provide cleaning services, internet access, copy and fax services, shared conference rooms, a kitchen and storage areas, and at least in the beginning, parttime secretarial and reception services that could expand as needed. Rents range from $300 to $600 depending on the size of the space, but the shared services will be available to everyone.
The two pointed to similar shared officespace concepts in other parts of town, among them Second Street Studios and the business incubator on Paseo del Sol off Airport Road, and a lack of such complexes south of Santa Fe and closer to Interstate 25.
“It’s a concept we have downtown but nothing out here in this part of town and in Rancho Viejo,” Duran said.
“What we are trying to do is provide office space basically for the community,” said Duran, a real estate broker with Keller-Williams Realty. “It makes more sense for those who live here in Rancho Viejo to be able to bike or walk or drive a short distance to an office and free up the office space they have in their home.”
He said sharing office space outside the home also offers opportunities to network with similar or related business people.
Winter also noted a resurgence in home and commercial construction on the south side since the economic crash of 2008.
The two said they will be ready to open the office building when they have yearlong lease agreements from five to 10 clients.
For more information, would-be tenants are asked to call Duran at 505-310-5566.