[Foundation-l] WMF Office Move

[George Herbert]

The only useful parking near there is at 3rd and Jessie, or southeast
of the building, but if everyone can commute in it's a safe walk from
BART.

Congrats!


On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 4:59 PM, Daniel Phelps <dphelps at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Hello Everyone,
>
> I'd like to announce the upcoming office move for the Wikimedia
> Foundation.  We have outgrown the current office space in the SOMA
> district of San Francisco.  This was a great space for us when we
> first landed in SF, but it's small, and we've been over capacity for
> several months now.  We want to provide space that enables the staff
> to get their work done (including sufficient meeting space and
> collaborative space, which we don't currently have) and we'd also like
> to be open to other people spending time with us, including hosting
> local meet-ups, and visits (including workspace) from out-of-town
> community members, Board and Advisory Board members, and people from
> like-minded organizations.  None of that has been possible in the
> current space.
>
> A move was approved as part of our 2009-10 annual plan, and we started
> looking for space a few months ago.   There are many good things about
> looking when we did; the local commercial real estate market is in a
> low point which afforded us the ability to find larger spaces for less
> $$ per square foot, and the vacancy rate allowed us to be very
> thoughtful about where we ended up.
>
> We ran a highly collaborative internal site selection process, which
> included some good conversations about accessibility, openness and
> brand fit.  (For example, being near South Park, the heart of dot-com
> land, has not been ideal for us from a brand perspective. Lots of
> people assume Wikipedia is a dot-com, and we don't want to
> accidentally encourage that misunderstanding.)
>
> In the end, one location was the shining beacon that as a group we all
> agreed 100% on.  I have never worked with an open, collaborative
> office move process in the past and I certainly didn't expect we'd
> find a space that we all liked and were excited about, but we did.  It
> met all of our current needs and should accommodate us in the years to
> come as it offers expandability and flexibility.  Today, we signed the
> lease, and we will move in mid-to-late October.
>
> As many of you may know, we have been somewhat secretive with our
> current address.  We made this decision for several reasons, the
> largest concern was for staff safety and reduction of interruptions
> that would keep us from our work.  The offices of any big website are
> vulnerable to all kinds of stalkers and gawkers, and -unlike Google or
> Yahoo or AOL- we don't have elaborate sign-in processes, security
> staff, or armies of receptionists intercepting visitors.  Our current
> space is on a back alley and the ground floor, with no security, so we
> have been worried about the safety of the staff.
>
> On reflection though, we don't think being secretive about the address
> was a good idea.  It ran counter to our values of openness and
> transparency, and it wasn't successful: anyone interested was easily
> able to find our address.   And, our new office is somewhat more
> secure: it's on a busy street, we'll be on the third floor, and there
> is a security person on-site.  So, we have decided not to continue to
> try to keep the address hidden.  It will be posted on the website and
> will be on our business cards and office stationery.  There is still
> the risk that we may have interruptions, but we are putting in place
> safe-guards to reduce this while also looking to the future and how we
> can be more receptive and approachable.
>
> Having said that, I invite you all to Google the new location to see
> for yourselves where we will be:
>
> 149 New Montgomery Street, 3rd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105.  Our
> phone and fax numbers will remain the same.
>
> Another positive aspect that will come with this move is the ability
> to repatriate the Wikipedia Usability team.  As our current office did
> not have enough space for them, we had to find nearby subleased office
> space.  This move will allow us all to be under one roof and will
> allow us to freely collaborate with them, something we all value
> immensely.
>
> We do have some additional time on our current lease and will be
> looking to sublease the office space or turn it over to someone who
> will take it as a direct lease and remove us from the responsibility.
> We have had much interest since we started looking and have a short
> list of possible sub-lessors.   Our hope is to have the office leased
> out by the end of November 2009.
>
> We look forward to the future in our new location and hope that we get
> a chance to have you all visit us.  We will do our best to post photos
> as we settle in so that people can imagine us all in our new setting.
>
> --
> Daniel Phelps
> Wikimedia Foundation
>
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-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com