The only useful parking near there is at 3rd and Jessie, or southeast of the building, but if everyone can commute in it's a safe walk from BART.
Congrats! On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 4:59 PM, Daniel Phelps <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello Everyone, > > I'd like to announce the upcoming office move for the Wikimedia > Foundation. We have outgrown the current office space in the SOMA > district of San Francisco. This was a great space for us when we > first landed in SF, but it's small, and we've been over capacity for > several months now. We want to provide space that enables the staff > to get their work done (including sufficient meeting space and > collaborative space, which we don't currently have) and we'd also like > to be open to other people spending time with us, including hosting > local meet-ups, and visits (including workspace) from out-of-town > community members, Board and Advisory Board members, and people from > like-minded organizations. None of that has been possible in the > current space. > > A move was approved as part of our 2009-10 annual plan, and we started > looking for space a few months ago. There are many good things about > looking when we did; the local commercial real estate market is in a > low point which afforded us the ability to find larger spaces for less > $$ per square foot, and the vacancy rate allowed us to be very > thoughtful about where we ended up. > > We ran a highly collaborative internal site selection process, which > included some good conversations about accessibility, openness and > brand fit. (For example, being near South Park, the heart of dot-com > land, has not been ideal for us from a brand perspective. Lots of > people assume Wikipedia is a dot-com, and we don't want to > accidentally encourage that misunderstanding.) > > In the end, one location was the shining beacon that as a group we all > agreed 100% on. I have never worked with an open, collaborative > office move process in the past and I certainly didn't expect we'd > find a space that we all liked and were excited about, but we did. It > met all of our current needs and should accommodate us in the years to > come as it offers expandability and flexibility. Today, we signed the > lease, and we will move in mid-to-late October. > > As many of you may know, we have been somewhat secretive with our > current address. We made this decision for several reasons, the > largest concern was for staff safety and reduction of interruptions > that would keep us from our work. The offices of any big website are > vulnerable to all kinds of stalkers and gawkers, and -unlike Google or > Yahoo or AOL- we don't have elaborate sign-in processes, security > staff, or armies of receptionists intercepting visitors. Our current > space is on a back alley and the ground floor, with no security, so we > have been worried about the safety of the staff. > > On reflection though, we don't think being secretive about the address > was a good idea. It ran counter to our values of openness and > transparency, and it wasn't successful: anyone interested was easily > able to find our address. And, our new office is somewhat more > secure: it's on a busy street, we'll be on the third floor, and there > is a security person on-site. So, we have decided not to continue to > try to keep the address hidden. It will be posted on the website and > will be on our business cards and office stationery. There is still > the risk that we may have interruptions, but we are putting in place > safe-guards to reduce this while also looking to the future and how we > can be more receptive and approachable. > > Having said that, I invite you all to Google the new location to see > for yourselves where we will be: > > 149 New Montgomery Street, 3rd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105. Our > phone and fax numbers will remain the same. > > Another positive aspect that will come with this move is the ability > to repatriate the Wikipedia Usability team. As our current office did > not have enough space for them, we had to find nearby subleased office > space. This move will allow us all to be under one roof and will > allow us to freely collaborate with them, something we all value > immensely. > > We do have some additional time on our current lease and will be > looking to sublease the office space or turn it over to someone who > will take it as a direct lease and remove us from the responsibility. > We have had much interest since we started looking and have a short > list of possible sub-lessors. Our hope is to have the office leased > out by the end of November 2009. > > We look forward to the future in our new location and hope that we get > a chance to have you all visit us. We will do our best to post photos > as we settle in so that people can imagine us all in our new setting. > > -- > Daniel Phelps > Wikimedia Foundation > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > [email protected] > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > -- -george william herbert [email protected] _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
