Creative businesses come together at co-working space

Bruntwood welcomes four new customers to 127 Portland Street as its new co-working suite, Together, hits 50 per cent occupancy, just one month after launch.

Offering fixed prices and boasting ultra-fast Internet connectivity, Together is proving to be a hit with Manchester’s growing creative and digital industry as a host of freelance and start-up businesses choose the Portland Street co-working space as a base to launch new ventures.

To support a ‘distributed’ working model, digital consultancy Topspin digital has set up a series of hubs around the UK as well as internationally. The team will use 127 Portland Street as a Manchester base from which to work and host meetings. On choosing Together as their Manchester base, Roberto Sim commented: “The Together workspace is perfect for our Manchester hub – a bright, modern space with great facilities and the right mix of complementary creative people.”

David Norris has chosen Together as the venue to launch his new venture, N5000 – a consultancy focussing on event space design. On the space, David said: “The collaborative nature of Together, the city centre location, ultra-fast broadband and office support from Bruntwood takes away hours of stress for a new agency setting up. This allows us to concentrate on the important task of growing the agency rather than sorting out broadband connections and getting new keys cut.”

Chris Crooks, Managing Director of BIMbox, a dedicated digital consultancy delivering cutting edge Building Information Modelling (BIM) services to architects, contractors and product manufacturers, added: “With a collaborative work model, we needed space with low overheads and fast broadband so we could get going straight away.”

Social Media Management Consultancy, Silver Back Social has also taken space at the suite and joins digital marketing agency, SupaReal.

Ian Wilson, Property Marketing Manager at Bruntwood, concluded: “There is a growing trend in the creative and digital sector where agencies and consultancies are moving away from the traditional in-house agency model to a more distributed structure. Full and part-time employees are working remotely and might be spread across the region or in different countries across the world. As such, they need an office solution that fits with their more flexible office requirements.

“The light, bright and flexible space that the Together suite offers, coupled with the fixed monthly rental, means that customers can use 127 Portland Street as a base without having to worry about costly overheads. We’re delighted with the positive response we’ve had and look forward to welcoming more creative minds to the space very soon.”