Office suites project taps into taps into new market: downsizing firms

When Tara Jorgensen launched Aevos, she figured the office suites project in South Meadows would draw tenants from growing companies that would lease an executive suite as a way station on their path to a stand-alone office of their own.

But as the economy turned south in the year since Aevos opened its doors, Jorgensen now leases space to a goodly number of companies that lease an office suite as they downsize their operations and move out of bigger traditional offices.

"That was a surprise to us," says Jorgensen, who owns the 7,120-square-foot Aevos with her husband, Robert.

The 23 suites in the project at 10775 Double R Blvd. range from about 80 square feet to 235 square feet. Aevos, located in a new building that was designed specifically for office suites, is about 70 percent leased.

Like the other dozen or so office-suites businesses in the market, Aevos leases small offices to tenants whose lease payments also include the use of a shared receptionist, a shared conference room and a

shared training room.

While much of Jorgensen's initial efforts focused on traditional leasing of office suites, she's now working to generate other streams of revenue as well.

Along with Phyl Brown, manager of Aevos, she's drumming up business among law firms, executive-search companies and others that want to rent the facility's videoconferencing facilities.

The pitch: At $125 an hour, a videoconference is a lot less expensive than business travel. The facility recently was used, for instance, by a law firm conducting a deposition that otherwise would have required international travel.

Jorgensen also is targeting home-based entrepreneurs that want to use Aevos' conference room and other facilities as "virtual suites." Those virtual suites, she says, also are used by companies that want to establish residency for tax purposes in Nevada.