Eighteen months ago silverorange moved from the outskirts of Charlottetown to the core of the city. We went from being neighbors with a KIA dealership and a Walmart to being neighbors with City Hall, Timothy’s coffee shop, and a dozen great restaurants. The lure of downtown was strong and it has more than lived up to its draw. We've liked it so much we've expanded our footprint.
224 Queen Street - Charlottetown
Posted by on Tuesday, January 25, 2005 in - 7 comments
When we moved downtown we purchased a beautiful one hundred year old three story Victorian home. This building fit our company perfectly. It also had lots of room for friends. Peter and Johnny of Reinvented live corporately on the main floor. silverorange folk occupy the top two. We are very happy neighbors. We thought that this amount of space would do us for a while. We didn’t think silverorange would grow so fast that we’d need more room. We were right and wrong.
What’s happened over the past year is that 84 Fitzroy Street (silverorange HQ) has become somewhat of a hub for a group of very interesting folks in our city. We’ve had standing room only meetings in our common lounge. We’ve interviewed all four local federal election candidates. We’ve had countless people drop in to say “hi” and to use our free wifi. Being this “creative hub” and concurrently running silverorange’s (and reinvented’s) daily operations has meant that this building is often bursting at the seams. If we were to add a few additional silverorange staff to the mix then something would have to give.
We combined the above situation with our fondness of real estate and noticed that the building that we share a backyard with was for sale. We actually looked at the building as a possible office before we found 84 Fitzroy. In the end we decided to buy the building. As of the first week of January we are the official owners of 224 Queen Street.
So what the heck is this place going to be?! It’s not going to be more silverorange office space. We’ve got our own space here. There will be three things happening in the building.
- A silverorange founder is coming home after a long time away at school. They will be living in the beautiful two bedroom apartment in the back of the building.
- We are looking at renting space to a company we really like in the city. We’ve had a relationship with this company for a long time and would love to be extra close to them.
- We are in the process of working with two amazing people to take the “creative hub” idea to a whole new level. It is this idea that will occupy the majority of space in the new building. There will be a full website dedicated to this idea. Please check back in three weeks to a month for full details.
Renovations begin this spring. Painting this summer. We’re very excited about it.
Comments
charles - January 25, 2005 4:29 pm
Very cool. How much longer until you buy the whole block?
Jeff Smith - January 25, 2005 4:58 pm
This "creative hub" expansion idea sounds really intriguing. I wish that I was still on the Island so that I could watch it materialize. I guess watching over the internet is the next best thing though.
ALan - January 25, 2005 10:07 pm
I really hope that creative new level isn't that pickled meats on a stick thing thing you were talking about a few years ago. I know it was late and you had had waaay too much curry. Gotta be something else.
Scot MacDonald - January 26, 2005 3:12 pm
Kudos to you and your team for creating what sounds like a truly enviable work environment. Good luck with the expansion.
Seb - January 26, 2005 7:34 pm
Whoa, this sounds very exciting indeed!
Mandy - January 27, 2005 6:14 pm
And we are ever so happy to have said founder back with us on our fair Isle.... now, put him to work...
Al O'Neill - January 31, 2005 4:49 pm
This is a very cool idea, glad to see people actually trying out new ideas instead of just musing about them. Good luck with it all. I'll be paying close attention, to be sure.