Quote:
Originally Posted by bomberjet
I recently changed companies and am now located downtown. Moved from the south end ghettos. It's quite convenient to walk 10 mins to meet with clients. In winter the skywalk is also convenient.
It's a hastle to now have to schedule my car trips. "Okay tomorrow I have a meeting I need to drive to. Make sure GF doesn't need the car, so I can take it with me. Make sure to expense my $10 parking fees. Drive to never never land for the meeting. Etc."
I find it's a battle between management and employees. Not to envoke a blanket statement on all people. But I find older, wealthier management are more likely to prefer suburban locations. My GF's company is relocating to south Pembina office space. She would prefer downtown, as would about 75% of the staff. It's the older, management folk who live in that area and want to drive to work that ruin it for the rest of them.
Anecdotal, but ts generally true from my experiences. Same goes for the old company I worked for. They chose to relocate a few years back to the south end because the managers lived in Lindenwoods and White Ridge.
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There's no question about that. But it's also the clientele. Decision makers are generally older, more affluent people living in these areas too. The whole thing is an exercise in trying to relate.
And I think it depends on what sort of engineering you're doing. You're involved int he transportation side if i remember correctly, so a lot of your 'clients' (read: government) will already be downtown too. But if you're a basic structural guy or doing electrical or mechanical stuff for contractors, your clients are largely transient and prefer not to have to pay to park their huge trucks downtown while they come in to pick up drawings. But of course, this is also anecdotal.
Eventually it isn't going to matter much anyway. Clients rarely see the inside of an office anymore given the ease with which things are emailed or meetings that can held over the phone or skype, and you're right about how the decisions are made: the owners/partners settle where its convenient. That'll likely continue to be the suburbs given that the decision makers will generally always be on the older side.