Mantle: Opening a new business centre during a pandemic
Back in March, on the eve of the first lockdown, Mantle launched The Lambourn in Abingdon. This wasn’t to be the only business centre to launch during the pandemic. This November saw the introduction of Nine Hills Road in Cambridge. Opening during these times has had its challenges. However, as with all Mantle centres, these new workspaces were designed with flexibility in mind.
The refurbishment of both new centres was ispired by London-based architects Selencky///Parsons, known for creating inspiring, practical and coherent spaces. They previously worked with Mantle on Kings Court in Stevenage, and Thremhall Park in Stansted. They work with Mantle to take tired, underused office buildings and transform them into timeless, inspirational working environments.
Due to the pandemic, how we manage our business centres has changed. Accustomed as we were to running business networking and other social events and focussing on building a vibrant community experience, our priorities are different now. Our first priority is the health and safety of tenants and staff alike, and creating an environment that inspires trust and confidence. Whilst making connections and building a positive community experience is still at the heart of what we do. We want our tenants to focus on their work, with less worry.
This year also saw the introduction of the new Home-Flexi option, where you can combine working from home with using business centre facilities to create some separation between your work and home life. Included is a business address service for your post and parcel deliveries and a number of hours meeting room use, providing you space to meet with clients or meet with your teams so that you can plan projects, bolster team spirits and comradery. There is no long-term contract, providing an ideal temporary solution to help you while working from home. More information about this new flexible workspace option is available on the Mantle website.
We’re pleased that many of our tenants have grown their businesses despite the challenges presented by the current crisis. We feel flexibility is key to be able to run your business your way, to enable your team to work in a way that suits them. We believe working in an office environment inspires business growth and productivity, and we want to make that easy for people to do. Enquiries are up by 27%. Although it is very much a “wait and see” market, we are optimistic for 2021. Whilst we will be facing some challenges in the short term, our long-term future is bright.
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