Regus, the global workspace provider, has opened a drop-in business lounge and meeting rooms at Fort Kinnaird Shopping Centre, in Edinburgh, catering for local retailers and mobile workers.
The new Regus Express business lounge at Fort Kinnaird offers a convenient, professional working environment with secure wifi, meeting rooms, co-working spaces, private workstations (called ‘Thinkpods’) and complimentary refreshments.
People will be able to use the space to work all day, or just touchdown for half an hour to print a document, catch up on emails or meet a colleague. Consumers shopping at the centre will also have a convenient space to take work calls or pick up on urgent work tasks. In addition, the retailers at Fort Kinnaird are expected to make considerable use of the meeting rooms, which can be booked online and by the hour, as a convenient and cost-effective location for team and management meetings.
Fort Kinnaird also adds another location to Regus’ Businessworld membership scheme. Customers can choose the membership level to suit their needs (from blue, gold, platinum and platinumplus) and benefit from Regus’ network of flexible workspaces for a fixed monthly cost.
The opening extends the roll-out of Regus ‘third places’ around the UK, which bridge the gap between the traditional office and home-working. They offer workers the convenience of an on-demand workplace with a more productive atmosphere and facilities than home or coffee shops.
The fast-growing Regus Express network around Britain already includes motorway service stations; retail shopping centres; hotels; and airport business lounges at Heathrow, Gatwick and Birmingham. Regus is also in discussion with UK transport operators to help make work more convenient.
Stephen Fox, Founder of Panliska and a Regus customer said, “My work requires me to travel and regularly hold meetings across Europe. For someone like me the business lounge and meeting rooms at Fort Kinnaird Retail Park in Edinburgh represent another professional location to touch down whilst I’m out and about.
“I’ve used my Gold card all over the world; in London, Brussels, Adelaide, Helsinki and San Francisco to work between meetings or to meet my contacts. Not only does Businessworld represent great value for money, using Regus workspaces is far more professional than meeting in coffee shops or hotel lobbies, which a lot of business people do. You have privacy and it allows you to project a credible image.”
Phil Kemp, Managing Director Commercial Management and Incubation at Regus, added: “We know that more and more people are working flexibly, instead of the traditional 9-5 in the office. Regus Express is all about making it possible to work anywhere, so where better to open a business centre than at a major retail centre.
“This centre caters for a range of users, including the retail tenants of Fort Kinnaird; local home-workers and freelancers looking for a more professional environment; mobile workers such as sales teams; and corporate employees who work remotely for some of the week. Our research shows that a third of UK employers are offering more flexible working and facilities like Regus Express make it easier for workers to access the right facilities and do their jobs effectively.”
This is one of a series of Regus Express deals with shopping centres and parks in the UK, with others already open in Meadowhall, Sheffield, Broughton Shopping Park, Chester and Drake Circus, Plymouth.
There are two ways to access Regus Express centres:
- Pay-as-you-go access priced at £5 per hour or £10 per day.
- Regus Businessworld membership at £35 per month, which provides drop-in access to the business lounges at each of Regus’ 300 UK locations including Regus Express.
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
