AF office suites rents virtual space to home businesses

Ahwatukee Foothills News
July 17, 2007

In a world where nearly everything is going virtual, an Ahwatukee Foothills office suites company even has virtual tenants.

Advantage Office Suites, located at 4805 E. Thistle Landing Drive, offers packages to home-based businesses or start-up companies, which gives them access to their facilities without actually having an office there.

Debbie VanDyk, spokeswoman for Advantage Office Suites’ Chandler location, at 1820 E. Ray Road, said she just signed up two virtual packages in one day.

“The virtual option gives the person working out of their home office all the benefits that a person would have with a professional office.” VanDyk said. “In this market over here, a lot of people are jumping on the bandwagon.”

The virtual office packages start at $75 per month for a business mailing address, all the way up to $325 per month for a business address, phone reception, voice mailbox or call forwarding and 10 hours of monthly access to board rooms or conference rooms.

The virtual tenant option is ideal for Internet-based companies, such as constructNet International. The company produces online instructional courses in construction education and training.

Lupe Carbajal, chief executive officer of constructNet International, said he doesn’t really see a need to pay for office space.

“The nature of the company is technological, so we can operate by Internet and it’s in keeping with what we’re about,” Carbajal said.

ConstructNet International spun out of the Del E. Webb School of Construction at Arizona State University in 2005, where Carbajal was director of business development. ASU also has a close relationship with Technologico de Monterrey in Mexico, which is currently negotiating for equity in constructNet.

The company’s products range from Construction English for the Spanish Speaker to Construction Management Programs.

“The bottom line is instead of investing money in brick and mortar, we’re investing our money in production and putting that money back into what it is we do for a living.” Carbajal said, “We get to pay attention to production, to the vision we have for the company and to growing the business.”

Marco Nava, vice president of constructNet, said Advantage Office Suites does a really good job about going the extra mile for its tenants.

“Sometimes you’ll be having a meeting and they’ll come in and offer coffee,” Nava said, “that’s not part of the job description or part of their services here. So they make it feel like truly they work for the company and they treat our customers as somebody really important. That’s really something else.”

Some virtual tenants like to stay mum about their lack of office space, but Carbajal said he’s proud of it.

“Our retort is: Try our product. Don’t be impressed by the building that we’re in or that we’re not in. Try our product and then measure our worth and our value.”

For more information on Advantage Office Suites and its services, call (480) 346-4200.