Page 22 - BusinessWest March 31, 2021

OFFICE FURNITURE RETAILERS
LISTED ALPHABETICALLY
COMPANY
CHIEF EXECUTIVE
SERVICES
PRODUCT LINES
BROADWAY OFFICE INTERIORS
90 Tapley St., Springfield, MA 01104
(413) 734-8911; www.broadwayoffice.com
Ronald Gordenstein
Sales of new, used, and refurbished office furniture; interior design; space planning
Affordable Interior Systems (cloned Steelcase and Herman Miller lines); Eurotech; Global; Lesro; Candex; HON; Indiana Furniture; Surfacetech; KI; Darran; KFI Seating; Groupe Lacasse; St. Timothy; United Stationers
CMC SHADES AND SPECIALTIES
135 Denslow Road, East Longmeadow, MA 01028 (413) 224-2456; www.cmcshadesandspecialties.com
CONTE OFFICE INTERIORS
25 Miles St., Greenfield, MA 01301 (413) 774-7581; www.conteoffice.com
DISCOUNT OFFICE FURNITURE INC.
2131 Riverdale St., West Springfield, MA 01089 (413) 737-0991; www.discountofficefurnitureinc.com
LEXINGTON GROUP INC.
380 Union St., West Springfield, MA 01089 (413) 746-3064; www.lexingtongroupinc.com
Co-work
Continued from page 21
very little community left right now with so few coming in,” she said. “We’re eking by, but we’re going to make it.
I think a lot of it is because we oper- ate as a nonprofit, so we had reserves built up, and we’re dipping into those reserves now.”
PPP loans, a Massachusetts small- business grant, and rent reduction have helped, but the complex will eventually need to boost its member- ship back up.
“It doesn’t matter whether you have one person here or 50; you have all these fixed expenses,” Yun said. “There may be a little bit of give in the rent, but we have to pull in fiber-optic inter- net — that’s a huge cost for us, almost $900 a month. All the utilities are fixed. Last summer, I said to myself, we need to be able to sustain ourselves until the summer of 2022 because I felt like that was going to be when the recovery was in full swing for us.”
That timeline seems more acceler- ated now, but she feels like the return to normalcy will still be a gradual one. “Do all the former members come
Maria Czupryna
Gary Conte Karin Conte
Alan Wytas Ken Wytas
Mark Proshan
Certified woman-owned business; contract and residential window treatments: shades, blinds, draperies (manual and motorized); cubicle curtains, shower curtains, theater drapery; window film; repair to existing window treatments; custom upholstery and reupholstery; acoustical panels; sound-masking systems; contract furniture; contract interior design; commercial fabrics
Sales of new and used office furniture and systems
Sales of new and used discount office furniture; office-design space planning; furniture leasing
Sales of new, used, and refurbished furniture; space planning; design; buy-back
Hunter Douglas; Draper Inc.; MechoSystems; Graber; SWF Contract; Somfy; RollEase; Sound Seal; Koroseal; Kirsch; InPro; Lencore Acoustics; Lesro; Beaufurn; Seating Inc.; Fluid Concepts
Trendway; Global
HON; LaZBoy; Lesro; many others
Authorized Herman Miller dealer; All Seating; LogiFlex; Meridian; OTG; OFS; Sit On It; Shoto; others
way to predict what the open concept will look like in five years time, but we have some good ideas,” Goldsher said. Sauser agreed that the future of
the workplace is in flux, but suggested that the office of the future might look much like co-work spaces of today, “where flexibility is the emphasis, in part because office managers and com- panies dedicate less space to individual employees when employees are not coming in every day.”
Yun added that companies have decisions to make about whether to extend their traditional leases or move toward more flexibility and smaller footprints. That, in turn, could drive the next surge of growth in co-working, and she welcomes more such facili- ties, because each new complex will raise awareness of the model and its benefits.
“We don’t know how all this will shake out,” she said. “But the more co- working spaces exist, the better.” u
Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]
CONKLIN OFFICE FURNITURE
75 Appleton St., Holyoke, MA 01040 (413) 315-6777; www.conklinoffice.com
Franco Arnold
Sales of new, used, refurbished, ‘as-is’ furniture; buy-back services; installation; design; space planning
Haworth; Herman Miller; Knoll; Steelcase; many others
DANCO MODERN
10 West St., West Hatfield, MA 01088 (413) 247-5681; www.dancomodern.com
Ross Grant
Sales of international and domestic furniture for home and office; interior design; delivery and installation services
Ekornes Stressless; VIA; Natuzzi; BDI; Palliser; Lyndon; many others
INTERSCAPE COMMERCIAL ENVIRONMENTS
10 Waterside Dr., Farmington, CT 06032 (860) 882-5903; www.interscape.com
Josh Hagstrom
Full-service contract furnishings dealer providing space planning and furniture solutions for commercial, government, healthcare, and educational environments
Teknion (signature line); company represents 90 other manufacturers
RED THREAD
1350 Main St., Suite 1108, Springfield, MA 01103 (413) 736-1802; www.red-thread.com
Ray Wasson
Integrated interiors; furniture, seating, storage, and tables; ergonomic solutions; audio, video, data, videoconferencing, and telepresence; data centers; architectural systems; flooring; workplace services
Steelcase; AIS; KI; Kimball; National; HON; multiple healthcare manufacturers
back? A lot have moved on, and co- working is such that people come and people go all the time.”
The pandemic saw an influx of resi- dents from New York to Western Mass., but many of them have purchased large homes with home offices, so it’s unclear what effect that migration will have on co-working. “It seems daunt- ing, but we’ve been open for over five years here now, and I feel like we’re here to stay. Who knew we’d have a pandemic?”
To counter that still-active pan- demic, Click, like every other work- space, has launched a series of safety protocols, from requiring masks when moving about to regular sanitization to pumping in fresh air.
Air quality was a big concern for Barowsky at Venture X as well. “Dur- ing COVID, I was very cognizant of air-filtration systems. I spent well over $100,000 on seven rooftop units,” he said, in addition to investments in touchless bathrooms, numerous hand- sanitizer stations, and a keyless entry system.
Greenspace takes safety seriously as well, Sauser said. “From a COVID safety
standpoint, we follow all the state guidelines and have protocols in place — cleaning, masks, sanitizers.”
Goldsher added that the state’s rules early on made little sense, noting that Greenspace was not designated an essential business, but — unlike Click — stayed open throughout the pan- demic anyway because one of the com- panies it houses was deemed essential, and had to continue using the space.
“While I think we proved that we are a very necessary asset in the com- munity, there’s this strange dichotomy being open for essential business and not being considered an essential busi- ness ourselves.”
Here to Stay
But those who own co-working spaces in Western Mass. — other prominent centers include Amherst- Works, 734 Workspace in Longmeadow, and Cubit Coworks in Holyoke, to name just a few — say they are indeed an essential part of the 21st-century economy.
“I think the future of the workplace is very much up in the air. There’s no
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