Why Is This Man Upset with the Executive Office Center?

The Executive Office Center Discourse on Business invites blog post contributions from members of the business community.  This anonymous writer has a grievance against virtual office services.

I’m not a person who likes to complain, but I think that virtual office centers like the Executive Office Center at Fresh Meadows are unfair to commercial landlords.  I own an office building around the corner.  It’s always been full.  Now I have a 30% vacancy rate because of these guys.

Why?  What did they do to you?

It’s not what they did.  It’s what they do.

These guys give you everything.

They give you furniture.

They give you telephone service.

They give you internet service.

They pay for your gas and electric.

They pay for your cleaning.

They pay for everything!

I mean they even have a secretary who answers your phones.

Now, how can I compete with that?  I got a regular office building.

Well, it’s not their fault, really.  That’s the type of building it is.  That’s how they operate.

You think having a cafeteria in their building is fair?  You think it’s fair to have a beautiful conference room for all the tenants to use?

Do you know that you can rent Queens office space in here on a part-time basis?  You think that helps me?  I mean, you don’t even have to sign a long term lease with these guys.  They just let you use an office whenever you want one. 

Now is that fair?  I’m asking you.  That’s why I am protesting against this injustice to regular commercial building owners.

How Albert Einstein and Virtual Offices have Changed the Way we View Time and Space

                   
                       
During the course of the last two thousand years, science has dramatically changed the way we view and understand time and space.  For the better part of this period, the civilized world subscribed to the Ptolemaic, or geocentric model of the universe, which placed the earth at the center of the solar system.  In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus, stood the world on its head, with his introduction of a heliocenteric model - placing the sun at the center of the universe.

Since then, we've been shaken up a good deal more than that. Scientists now tell us that space and time were born some 13.7 billion years ago, with the big bang.  Far from being at the center at the universe, our solar system, along with everything else in the cosmos, is moving with great speed away from its original point of origin.

Albert Einstein, with his Theory of Special Relativity, helped us understand why we don't have to hold on to our chairs while we go hurtling through space.  Actually, no one in the world understands this, save for a few mathematicians of the same rank, but he made it digestible for us simple folk.

Imagine, he said, that we are standing on the ground, watching an airplane sail across the sky.  It appears to move slowly. However, if we were standing on a cloud right next to it, it would appear to rush past us at tremendous speed.  Yet, the people inside the plane hardly feel as if they are moving at all.

In the good old days, we used to think of space as something finite, measured by length, width and height.   Einstein threw in a fourth dimension - time.  Einstein perceived that space around mass was actually curved.  And that's not all.  Time, as it turns out, is not linear at all.  It actually slows down as you approach the speed of light.  

Enough about Einstein, however.  In the last twenty years, there has also been a re-conceptualization of time and space in the universe of commercial real estate.  Fortunately this revolution in is much less abstract. Once we believed that an office space could only be leased by a single entity for a prescribed period of time.  

This idea has been replaced by a virtual office model, which allows multiple tenants to coexist simultaneously in the same space.  The Queens NY office building now known as the Executive Office Center at Fresh Meadows was once home to First Choice Real Estate - a single tenant - for over twenty years. Now, the same space is the professional business address of over 150 different companies.  This doesn't have anything to do with space being curved or time being relative.  It merely allows multiple tenants to utilize the same space at different times.
  
A lot of business owners here in Queens New York and elsewhere - people who work out of their homes, for example - are not familiar with the concept of virtual offices.  They may associate the world virtual with ethereal or intangible.  But the space and services provided by the Executive Office Center and other office business centers are very real, and very inexpensive. They include personalized Queens telephone answering, telephone and internet service, Queens mailbox rental, access to ready to use office space and conference rooms, and much much more.  

In just two decades, the concept has spread across the globe, and can be found in every major metropolitan center in the world. It is such a practical and cost effective alternative to traditional office space, it is just a matter of time before it changes the rental marketplace forever.

Virtual Office Services Ideal for Home Based Businesses

Thousands of Queens’ business owners commute to work every morning by taking the stairs down to the basement or to another area in the house designated as a home office. 

Every year, an increasing number of entrepreneurs choose to work out of their homes, some out of preference, but most out of economic necessity. The recession has forced millions of small business owners to cut back on rent and overhead expenses.

There are a great many benefits to working at home, most notably, the cost savings.  Foregoing a traditional Queens office space allows you to save on rent and associated overhead expenses.  Additionally, you save on gas, on child care, and a myriad of other costs involved with operating a business out of a rented office space.

Another great benefit is the flexibility it offers you to tend to the needs of your family, especially if you have young children.  You can pick up the kids at school, and get them started on their homework.  You can also get the chicken into the oven at 4:00 p.m. 

Though the advantages to working at home are numerous, there is a downside, as well.  What to do you do when you need to meet with a client?  Do you really want to meet with clients or customers in your home?  In your basement?  Some home based entrepreneurs opt to meet clients at public hubs such as Starbucks.  That may work once or twice, but is not a solution for the long term.

Another downside to working in the house is the temptation to do the laundry or get sidetracked by other household chores.  Your kids can also be a distraction just at the moment that you get an important call.  That has happened to me on more than one occasion, especially when my children were very young.  They seem to demand your attention just as you pick up the phone.

Fortunately there is a solution for home based businesses in need of a professional facade.  It is called a virtual office.  The concept of virtual office services began to take shape about twenty years ago as an outgrowth of the executive suite industry.  An executive suite center offers offices that are furnished, and equipped for telephone and internet use.  They often have a receptionist to meet and greet clients and answer telephones for the tenants.  Personalized answering services make it appear as if you have your own personal secretary.  There is usually a common conference room available for scheduled use, a cafeteria, copy center, and other office amenities.

A virtual office allows you to take advantage of these services on an a la carte basis.  Perhaps you only need an office suite or conference room once or twice a week to meet an occasional client.  Or maybe you need use of a conference room to make a presentation before a group.  Some executive suite centers offer high quality videoconference services, as well.  Or maybe you just need to get out of the house and into an office environment a few days to a week in order to feel more professional.  Whatever you need, virtual office services are often available from the provider in customizable form.  You pay for your use of the office facility on an as need basis.

In sum, virtual office services allow you to maintain a professional appearance without the cost of maintaining a full time office.  It is not surprising that though the office rental market is still reeling from the effects of the financial downturn that began in 2008, the virtual office industry has continued to grow.

See why this guy is upset with Executive Office Center at Fresh Meadows in Queens NY

One Queens Office Building Does More Than Offer Space For Rent. It Offers To Help Its Tenants Make More Money.

Executive Office Center owners, Steven and Jack Blumner may have hit upon a novel idea when they opened their state-of-the-art business center in the fall. The brothers, former owners of First Choice Real Estate, once the top selling residential brokerage in Queens, are not merely landlords.  They are actively engaged in helping their tenants make more money.

Since opening in October, the Executive Office Center at Fresh Meadows has attracted 50 tenants and virtual tenants, including seventeen attorneys.  “We’re right on schedule,” says Executive Director Jack Blumner, who expects that number to double by the end of the year.

The Executive Office Center, offering serviced office suites and Queens virtual office services, is the first such business center to open in the borough of Queens.  There are scores of executive suite office centers in Manhattan and Long Island, but none until now in the densely populated borough of Queens.

Executive suite centers typically offer a menu of administrative services to their tenants, but supplementing these services with marketing support elevates the concept of serviced office space to a new level.  

Jack and Steven Blumner are no strangers to marketing.  In the 1990s they made their company, First Choice Real Estate, a household name in Queens by sending out millions of pieces direct mail to homeowners in the borough.  Now they are using the World Wide Web to help accomplish their objectives. 

     What they have done is to develop two consumer websites to help promote and facilitate business for their tenants, as a value added benefit.  The two websites are www.everythingunder1roof.com and www.queensforless.com. 

·         www.everythingunder1roof.com is a business directory of the Executive Office Center at Fresh Meadows tenants that shortcuts the customer’s hunt for business and professional services in Queens.   There are presently 50 companies affiliated with the office center.  In time, there will be several hundred, says Mr. Blumner, “and we want Queens consumers to know that they can find virtually everything they need right here under one roof.”

·         www.queensforless.com offers coupon discounts for Queens neighborhood stores and restaurants, while featuring the professional and business services of the Executive Office Center’s tenants.   Consumers are lured to the website by attractive retail discounts.  Once there, they also find the many different professional and business services offered by tenants of the Executive Office Center.

   
Tenants of the Executive Office Center are also featured on the 16 foot LED display that faces the busy parking lot of the Fresh Meadows shopping center. 
    
The Executive Office Center is the perfect place for attorneys and other solo professionals and small companies doing business in the borough of Queens.  It is ideal for companies that need a branch or satellite office in the borough.  The Executive Office Center is also the closest office business center to JFK and LaGuardia airports.  Business travelers to New York may wish to take advantage of the building’s close proximity to the airports.  Day suites and conference rooms are available at hourly, daily and weekly rates.