Consulting and advisory group Urbis is preparing to add property valuation to its suite of services, following its move to customised new premises at The Quadrant on William Street.
Consulting and advisory group Urbis is preparing to add property valuation to its suite of services, following its move to customised new premises at The Quadrant on William Street.
Urbis, which established its Perth office in 2008, shifted to level 14 of The Quadrant in late July, taking up 1,100 square metres of space with a custom-built fit-out, with the lease deal brokered by Knight Frank.
WA regional director Ray Haeren said the new office gave Urbis the capacity to expand its team and add valuation to its planning, urban design, landscape architecture and urban economics service divisions.
He said the fit-out would allow Urbis to expand its staff from 45 to 80 over the next seven-to-10 years.
“To have reached a point of maturity both financially and from a scale and numbers perspective to be able to take a floor of a building and to go for a purpose-built fit-out was a significant vote of confidence,” Mr Haeren told Business News.
“Particularly at the moment where a lot of people are talking about the state of the market, it is very much a vote of confidence that this is part of a cycle.
“We’ve very much sought to maintain capacity because the softening is only temporary, and I think we’re probably at the bottom of the cycle.
“I’m fully expecting in the next six-to-12 months we will see renewed business confidence.”
Nonetheless, Mr Haeren said the depressed office market conditions currently being experienced in Perth were what gave Urbis the opportunity to set up its new office.
“We were able to get into a higher-spec building for a better rate than what we were paying, we were able to get a great incentive to help us along, which ultimately means we’ve got a great outcome for our clients and our team – and it’s been very cost effective,” he said.
“If you’re going to be doing it, now is the time to be doing it.”
Mr Haeren said the office move coincided with the recent opening of Urbis’s Singapore office, which will be closely aligned with Perth, and a company-wide branding refresh.
Local architect Gray Pruksand undertook design works for the fit-out, while the office layout and the facilities provided were developed through consultation with Urbis’s Perth-based staff.
Mr Haeren said tapping into his employees’ wants and needs would give Urbis an added advantage in retaining its staff.
Specific details Urbis staff requested were high-quality end-of-trip facilities, as well as close proximity to transport links and the food and beverage precinct at Brookfield Place, adjacent to The Quadrant.
“It wasn’t a process of design by committee or consensus, because that’s unworkable,” Mr Haeren said.
“But we asked people about what they thought was most important, and we had a small group that was representative of the various genders and age groups within the office involved in the design development process.
“Ultimately the outcome reflected not only my vision or the management team’s vision, but it was more of a collective vision of how we wanted to be and how we wanted to present to the market.
“In the industry that we’re in, what we sell is time and talent.
“If you don’t have the best people and if they’re not happy and not motivated, you’re on a pathway to pain.
“So finding out what your staff most want and what they most value, helps you direct your time, energy and resources to get the biggest bang for your buck.”
