Amata Law Offices 
Corporate offices may be shrinking in terms of square footage as businesses of all sizes adopt the open-office model, but demand for conference rooms is on the rise as workplace privacy becomes increasingly harder to come by in this world of office densification.
While Amata’s shared office centers appeal to a variety of businesses, they’re especially popular with attorneys, who account for nearly a third of the company’s business. Each location’s amenities and full-service staff, who can assist with everything from preparing a deposition room to serving subpoenas, makes Amata a natural choice for law firms looking for flexible, affordable space in the heart of Chicago’s Legal District. This attention to service is part of what drew Garofalo Law Group to Amata’s 161 N. Clark St. location back in 2004. Now, a decade later, Garofalo attributes much of its growth to Amata and continues to reap the benefits of the shared office environment.
One of the biggest benefits of leasing space in a shared office center is the sense of community and collaboration among professionals from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines. Like many of our clients, who support each other’s businesses on a regular basis, we believe it’s important to give back to the companies and organizations that call Amata home.
For the past seven years, we have donated both time and money to the Israel Idonije Foundation, a local non-profit – and Amata client – that provides youth programming to children in underserved communities. Founded in 2007 by NFL defensive end Israel “Izzy” Idonije, the foundation offers a number of community-level initiatives that promote social and emotional life skills. To date, it has served more than 7,400 disadvantaged youth through its community-level initiatives, which include after-school programs, sports camps and medical missions to Africa.
Shared office space or co-working environments offer many advantages to entrepreneurs and branch offices of businesses and continue to grow in popularity. Much of this shift is due to the rising rental and purchase costs of commercial office space, as well as to the decrease in suitable space in many places. If you decide that shared office space is the best option for you and your company, then fully inform yourself as it will pay off in the long run.
While shared offices attract a wide range of professionals, they’re especially popular among attorneys, who account for nearly 35 percent of Amata’s clientele. Not only do lawyers benefit from each other’s expertise by officing down the hall from each other, but they can also take advantage of special services and amenities offered to Amata’s legal clients, including everything from private deposition rooms to paralegal support that can help with legal research. Amata staff members will even file lawsuits and serve subpoenas, and can also assist with Spanish translation – services that aren’t provided in a typical shared office environment.
It was this full spectrum of services that appealed to Brad Bennett & Marc Bangser, a pair of attorneys who, after working together at a larger firm, decided to start their own practice last year, becoming one of the first tenants at Amata’s newest shared office center at 150 S. Wacker Drive. “We had a chance to see several other shared office floors with rival companies, and without a doubt Amata had the best setup with the friendliest and most outgoing professionals to welcome us into their family,” says Bangser.
You can read more about how Amata’s services have benefitted their business below:
Beautiful photography can work magic in the eyes of its beholder. It can re-invent a time or place long lost or changed. It can take us to a destination we’ve never been to before. It can evoke emotions we didn’t know we felt and even help us sympathize with the emotions of others. To top it all off- it just looks great.
Inspiring and eye-catching photography like this hangs on the walls of two of Amata’s Chicago shared office spaces at 150 S. Wacker and 225 W. Washington. The photographer responsible for these striking photos is Tony Reynes, the founder of Northshore Digital Photography. His photographs have attracted the attention of Amata’s clients and their guests, so we want to give you a re-cap on a quick chat we recently had with Tony himself. But first…
Demand for freelancers continued to climb in 2014 as employers sought to streamline operations and reduce overhead, and if the latest numbers are any indication, the trend shows no sign of slowing in the months and years ahead.
In fact, it’s estimated that freelancers, defined as “individuals who have engaged in supplemental, temporary, or project- or contract-based work in the past 12 months,” currently account for 34 percent of the U.S. workforce, contributing more than $700 billion to the nation’s economy each year. While experts have varying opinions on how quickly the freelance economy will grow – some predict independent workers will make up as much as 50 percent of the workforce by 2020 – the general consensus is that the “full-time job with benefits” is falling out of favor with workers who increasingly prefer the flexibility of the project-to-project lifestyle.
When Dan Marcus started his investment management business nearly a decade ago, he needed an office space that would be able to grow with his company. After considering a variety of options, including traditional office space, Dan decided to lease space in Amata’s newly renovated 225 W. Washington location.
What’s the best way to promote teamwork and collaboration in the workplace?
If you work in a shared office space, chances are, you have been invited to networking events and turned them down. Maybe you were actually busy, or maybe you thought they would be a boring waste of time. Actually, these events can be incredibly beneficial, and any business person serious about their growth should invest some extra attention into them.
Networking events can help you expand your network (big surprise, right?) of colleagues, mentors, customers, employees, friends, the list can go on. You never know what kind of connections might spring from them. And we are all familiar with the old adage, “It’s not what you know, but who you know”. This is a valuable benefit to working in a Chicago shared office space.
