[Foundation-l] Wikia leasing office space to WMF

[Erik Moeller]

2009/1/23 David Levy <lifeisunfair at gmail.com>:
> Erik Moeller wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>> * We've suggested to Wikia a fair market rate based on the average of
>> the other options we obtained;
>> * After some negotiation, Wikia accepted. Weighing other pros and cons
>> of the space against other options, we decided to go with Wikia;
>
> To clarify, did Wikia match the lowest bid?

No, and we didn't ask them to. We obtained about a dozen bids, ranging
from about $150 to $565 per person/month. Obviously all those spaces
had different characteristics.  Wikia was in the running because it
had desirable characteristics from the start (high proximity, shared
kitchen access, shared speakerphone use, shared Internet connection,
etc.). We used averaging as a way to arrive at a fair market rate to
neither advantage nor disadvantage Wikia when suggesting a rate. The
averaging also resulted in a rate that was roughly equivalent to the
most comparable space in the running.

Wikia, too, looked at different potential tenants for the space. The
final rate we negotiated was slightly higher than the most comparable
option we looked at (and considered very seriously, including a site
visit). However, the relative advantages of the Wikia space
compensated for that. We were quite careful not to draw any special
advantages from our relationship to Wikia, and Wikia was careful to
treat us in our negotiations like any other tenant. While we're likely
to work with them on technical aspects of the projects, we were also
careful to keep that completely separate.
-- 
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation

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