Vancouver Locations Provide E-mail, Space for Home-based Businesses

A growing number of startups are using virtual offices to provide their companies a professional face.

Firms using virtual offices
BY ERIN MIDDLEWOOD

When Steve Wolfe launched his business, Pathfinder Financial Advisors, from a spare bedroom, he turned to Corner Office in Vancouver for a place to meet with clients while keeping overhead low.

Wolfe's business is among a small but growing number of startups using virtual offices to provide their companies a professional face. A virtual office can be as simple as a managed or automated telephone and e-mail response service to something that also includes a few hours of rented office space.

For people such as Wolfe, it can be an "introductory step for the person who is trying to make financial sense of getting out of their house," said Don Brown, owner of Corner Office, which has seven locations in the Portland-metro area.

It opened near the Vancouver mall in August, becoming the most recent to offer a virtual option in Vancouver.

Frugal alternative

ExecuTech Office Suites, near Mill Plain Boulevard and Interstate 205, offered the virtual option for years under previous ownership. Now it's owned by Karen Higgins and her husband, who also offer virtual offices at Parkway Executive Suites near Padden Parkway.

For businesses that can't afford to rent an actual office — with monthly rent ranging from $400 to $1,000 — a virtual office can offer a physical address, phone reception and conference-room access for a fraction of that price.

For office complexes, reaching out to the home-based business helps offset occupancy downturns during the recession.

ExecuTech Office Suites and Parkway Executive Suites offer a package for $99 that includes mail and phone reception services. For $199, virtual office customers may also use a conference room for 10 hours a month.

Each location has a handful of clients, but the owners see interest growing with awareness of the virtual-office concept.

"I think people don't realize they exist," Higgins said.