No business rates to pay (exemption from the council)
All inclusive monthly rent (the only optional extra is a telephone line)
£25 sq. ft/year
Wide range of rooms between 200-1000 sq. ft
Monthly rolling contract (1 month notice)
Close to supermarket and relatively close to Aldershot train station
Plenty of parking
Don’t mind noise
Open to modifications, i.e. installation of extra electricity feeds
Outside areas for messy work
30Mb internet
##Cons:
Difficult to find your first time!
Has different manned barriers to go through depending on time of day, 7am - 7pm is Route A and outside of these hours is Route B.
We looked at 2 rooms, 236 sq. ft and 512 sq. ft. £491 & £1066. The 512 sq. ft. room is superb; on the ground floor, next to an exit to a courtyard, lots of natural light. In reality, the 236 sq. ft room would be a better example for us to start with, they seemed quite flexible so there is potential to move to a larger room if the hackspace continues its success.
This sounds excellent and good location, the smallest 236ft2 room would require a commitment of 20 of us at £25/month to cover the rent. Clearly we need to cover more than just the rent however so now would be an excellent time to get that commitment. when Dino has the pics we should do a post on the mailing list to that effect, I would also like to go see the place at some point.
2nd Room - 236 sq. ft. at £491 This room is upstairs
2nd Room View from window
2nd Room both windows in view
Room Adjacent to 2nd room Also upstairs - It has a ready project storage rack! Cannot recall what size it is.:
Not much of a view as can be seen here - window faces a brick wall
Shelving in some more detail
Fire Doors currently locked with break glass - though apparently we can get keys if we wish to do stuff outside (this fire door was closest to 2nd room if I recall)
Some rooms interconnect
There are toilets !
Random room With desk in it
various rooms
A very small room :
Loadsa power !!
Hallways and a Macaba
Meeting rooms also available - can be used for training sessions ??
White board with copy function …
Canteen!
Kitchen Area
Another Meeting room
A container …
Step Ladders anyone?
Maad bob hotdesk office - These are £30pw with a 1 week notice period
Pop up poster with info on what they have and contact details.
Entrance hallway (bob’s office is to the left in this view (ie turn right as u are coming in )
Annotated image to give a bit of context. This is the ‘back’ of the building and shows location of both rooms we were ‘shown’ (though most rooms are empty so plenty of options).
It looks good, though I’m not sure how willing people will be to walk from the train station as it’s on the other side of the town centre, and the site is up hill from there
I’m assuming there are also opportunities to up and down size as required? How use - able are the smallest rooms (including a bunch of storage as required), considering the amount of space we gather in now on a Thursday?
the walk doesn’t look all that bad really, it’s only a short amount more than the old walk but less complicated, and at least there’s a burger king on the way
The walk from Aldershot station is about 15mins which isn’t to bad for me (might be an issue for someone not knowing directions etc…).
I notice the rooms are aimed at office use rather than industrial Do they understand the nature of our organisation? The rooms appear to have carpets which worry me given some of the activities in which we partake. Also would they be happy with us running chop saws, bench drills etc… what if we want to do some welding. I would worry we are paying extra for things like carpets aimed at traditional office use rather than a more industrial setting perhaps.
I’m more concerned about at night, especially on the way back. That way isn’t the nicest of walks, and not very well lit.
Also as Al has pointed out, it’s not really an industrial site. We might be fine for the likes of soldering, but as soon as we start looking at pillar drills and the alike, we are going to get a big fat no for indoor use, and no chance of been a bit to take such equipment out side each time we want to use it, especially if it’s not a ground floor room.
You’ve got a good point here, although the images show the building has an ample supply of power, I’m not sure how they’d view us drilling, milling and turning in a building shared with people trying to work at desks.
Once we have a space, the next logical step will eventually be to get some heavy equipment in there, so we need to make sure we factor it in.
Indeed. I was under the impression it wasn’t the availability of sites that was a problem so much as availability of funds.
If we’re really going to do this, I’d rather see us somewhere industrial, especially at those prices, than somewhere where we’ll be worrying about a bit of sawdust on the carpets.
