Metro Roundup: New company Werkplas offers remote work options

A new coworking space at The Galleries at 3000 Riverchase is helping meet demand for remote work locations.

Bluff Park resident Paul Sutton opened a coworking site called Werkplas on the 15th floor of the office tower connected to the Riverchase Galleria early this year.

He had not planned to open until the fall but started providing some private office space to a few people in February even as buildout was taking place for the rest of the space, which opened more fully at the end of April.

Werkplas has about 10,000 square feet of Class A office space on the 15th floor and has expanded to about 8,000 square feet on the 17th floor of the tower as well.

The facility offers a come-and-go workspace with 53 workstations in a common area, 10 personal offices, and conference rooms that accommodate anywhere from six to eight people to a large boardroom that can seat 24 people around the table and more against the wall.

GROWING DEMAND

The idea is to provide a flexible workspace for people who work outside of their company’s office. A growing number of people are working remotely and need a place to sit down with a laptop and do some work in an environment other than a coffee shop or restaurant.

Coworking spaces can be helpful for people who travel but also for those who are out and about town doing business throughout the day or people who are looking to find a workspace other than their dining room table, Sutton said.

A growing number of companies are giving employees the flexibility to work from home, avoiding long commutes. But there are times when people need an office environment on a short-term basis, gaining a quiet space to work, a place to meet clients or access to a copier or printer.

Also, a growing percentage of the workforce is made up of independent contractors who are not full-time employees of a company, but rather work by contract, Sutton said. Some studies predict that independent contractors could make up more than 50% of the workforce in 10 years, he said.

People can pay for a common area workspace for an hour, half-day or full day or pay a membership fee of $200 per month for accessany time between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Werkplas also offers come-and-go “flex” private offices for $300-$350 a month and private individual offices that can be locked with a key for $500 per month, Sutton said. Customers with their own permanent offices can come any hour of the day, he said.

Space agreements are on a month-to-month basis, with no long-term commitments, he said.

There is a canteen and a concierge available to assist with check-in, finding a spot, the copy machine and technology issues. Due to COVID-19, the concierge also checks people’s temperatures and cleans workstations and chairs after each use, Sutton said. Masks are optional because it is considered a private office environment, he said.

Four of the 10 private offices are booked on a full-time basis. Use of the common area has been sporadic, but many people don’t know about Werkplas yet, Sutton said.

There were 10-12 members at the end of October, and as of that time, the busiest day had 15-20 people, but there are times when no one is in the common area, he said.

‘TOUGH TO BEAT THE VIEW’

Bill Hardekopf, a Riverchase resident who runs a credit card comparison website called lowcards.com, is one of the people who uses a private office every day. He previously had an office on Valleydale Road with three rooms, but his business partners moved and he no longer needed that much space. Werkplas is ideal for him, he said.

“I’m not one of those people that functions well having an office at home,” he said. “I think it’s great to have a separation of work and home life.”

He likes that he can pay for just his single office and still have the amenities of the common areas, plus the convenience of being in the middle of Hoover and having access to the food court at the Riverchase Galleria and food trucks outside the office tower.

Also, “it’s tough to beat the view” from the 15th floor of the tower, he said. “I’ve been very, very pleased with being able to work here.”

For a long time, coworking space was primarily in downtown, heavy-traffic urban areas and often used more by single people and young married professionals, but as those people have had kids, they have moved to the suburbs for better schools and still need convenient coworking space, Sutton said.

That’s one of the reasons he chose to put Werkplas in Hoover, he said.

COMPETITION

Competitors include Forge and Worx BHM in Birmingham, The Hub in Homewood, and Regus, which has coworking sites in the Shipt Tower and Southbridge and Perimeter Park office complexes in Birmingham and Meadow Brook Corporate Park and Chase Corporate Center in Hoover.

The Regis coworking site in Meadow Brook Corporate Park has 81 private offices,13 coworking desks and three meeting rooms, while the one in the Chase Corporate Center has 82 private offices, 10 coworking desks and two meeting rooms.

Sutton said Werkplas has capacity to add more private offices if needed.

One of Sutton’s other companies, Southern Business Furniture Services, is on the sixth floor of The Galleries at 3000 Riverchase.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Sutton worked for the Tandy Corp. in the personal computer business and served as district manager for Alabama and Georgia. He then worked for Starbucks for about 10 years, opening multiple stores, and was sales manager for an office furniture company until 2008. In 2009, he started Southern Business Furniture Services, which installs office furniture. Over time, he has acquired a lot of high-quality furniture, some of which he put to use in Werkplas, he said.

“I like to take things that are underused and turn them into something,” he said.

Werkplas is doing the same with unused office space in The Galleries at 3000 Riverchase, he said.

He thinks demand is only going to continue to grow for coworking space. When so many companies sent employees home to work remotely due to COVID-19, many of them were surprised how productive their people were while working remotely and have decided they don’t need nearly as much office space as they once did, he said.

But their employees may need space in coworking facilities they can share with others on a come-and-go basis, he said. Thus, he is specifically reaching out to companies looking to meet their office needs in a different way and willing to offer them special pricing packages, he said.

For more information about Werkplas, go to werkplas.com.