BUSINESS ”I want the incubation and
September 2019 • 14
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the business advice and the help to happen organically and naturally here. Here, we want to make sure that everyone knows everyone else’s first name at least, if not their life story.” – Coworkly founder Maher Arar, on his new Westboro location Coworkly founder Maher Arar at his new Westboro location. PHOTO BY MARK HOLLERON
Westboro entrepreneur making it work in the ’hood Maher Arar set to bring co-working concept to Kitchissippi with second Coworkly location BY DAVID SALI
W
hen Westboro resident Maher Arar was searching for the perfect place to open a new co-working space in Ottawa, he didn’t have to look far. Arar, who opened his first facility to house temporary office workers in early 2018 in Vanier, found the ideal space right in his own backyard on the second floor of a commercial building at 371A Richmond Rd., next to trendy children’s clothing retailer West End Kids and across the street from Mountain Equipment Co-Op. The 2,500-square-foot venue, known
as Coworkly, officially opens on Sept. 3. It features space for about 15 workers in a common area as well as a couple of private offices with half a dozen dedicated desks. Tenants can rent space by the day or the month, park their laptops at an empty desk and come and go as they please. “Our strategy is to go closer to where people live,” says Arar, who lives just a five-minute walk from the newest Coworkly location. “We’re going to help people hopefully save on commute time.” The veteran entrepreneur says he hopes the space becomes a breeding ground for cool new business ideas that one day
turn into the capital’s next great wave of companies. “I want the incubation and the business advice and the help to happen organically and naturally here,” he explains. “Here, we want to make sure that everyone knows everyone else’s first name at least, if not their life story.” The site isn’t meant for “people in suits,” Arar elaborates, but rather for the roll-upyour-sleeve type of founders who want to build companies from the ground up. He has plenty of them at his Vanier location, he notes, and is hoping to create the same kind of vibe in Westboro.
“Those are people in the trenches,” he says. “They’re not people who are going to teach you theory. This is the kind of dynamics I want to recreate here. The space is part of the story. The community is the bigger story.” Although the co-working movement is gaining momentum in Ottawa – real estate services firm CBRE estimates more than 300,000 square feet of facilities aimed at temporary workers are either already operating or soon to be launched in the National Capital Region – no such spaces existed in Westboro until now. Westboro Village BIA executive director Michelle Groulx says the neighbourhood was long overdue for a venture like Arar’s. “For the professional or the freelancer or very small business, there is nothing available in Westboro Village,” she says. “You know that people want to come because you see all these coffee shops that are full of people with laptops. When you see all of those people now have a space to go to, obviously they come to Westboro Village because it’s a great vibe, but also to get out of their homes and interact with other people.”