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The journey to Parkway’s new office

Last month, we finally announced our relocation to a completely renovated space in the Village of Lancaster. Truthfully, we’ve been using 5429 Broadway as our mailing address for a while now, after selling our old digs at almost the same time we transitioned to remote work in spring 2020. When we bought the former Lancaster Podiatry in late 2019, we knew we had a lot of work to do before this 150-year-old building worked for our growing agency. Little did we know it would be summer 2021—more than a year and a half later—before we moved in. 

With our new office finally the cozy, productive space we’d hoped it would be, it’s time to look back at how we got here—and why we moved in the first place.

Why the Big Move?

We’ve worked with some of our clients longer than Parkway has been doing business as Parkway. And for the entirety of those relationships, we called Williamsville home. So it might have come as a surprise when we announced that we moved—to Lancaster of all places. We loved Williamsville’s central location, cute shops, and good food. But we weren’t really close enough to enjoy what the village has to offer without getting in our cars. Our actual office space was also getting a little snug. 

Parkway’s new location is pretty great. There really couldn’t be a better place for our small company to grow than the Lancaster community! We can walk to Lancaster Coffee Company, Broadway Deli, the Lancaster Public Library and even Como Lake Park. There are so many local businesses here and we’re so glad Parkway is now among them. Plus, with tons of development happening just around the corner, there will be even more places to spend time and organizations to get to know. 

Moving to Lancaster not only gives us plenty of places to stretch our legs at lunchtime, but it also gives Parkway room to grow moving forward. We knew our team would need more space sooner rather than later, which is why we began looking at bigger buildings in early 2019. After adding two more employees since then, we’re very glad we started looking as early as we did. A bigger team means more projects, capabilities, meetings, phone calls and conversations, all of which run more smoothly when we have a little breathing room. 

While we strongly believe that our space does not affect the quality of our work (we built the Martin House’s new website entirely from our basements and spare bedrooms!), it does play a role in how we feel about coming to the office everyday. Our new building has character our previous office park location couldn’t dream of. Exposed brick, big windows, live plants and more than one Oxford Pennant order welcome us every morning. We also plan to get very serious about Lancaster’s Christmasville this year. 

With every day that passes, we find a new way to give our new office some personality!

How’d We Get Here?

We’d be asking ourselves this question after returning to work this summer even if we hadn’t moved. But with a new building and new team members, we’re even more excited (and maybe just a bit overwhelmed) about where we ended up. It isn’t easy transitioning back to office life after a year at home—especially a new office in a new town. 

We bought 5429 Broadway in 2019 after looking at a handful of commercial spaces. We loved the history of this building, which was Lancaster’s first bank and still has a variance that allows us to keep a small herd of horses next door. It also had good bones—that happened to be behind a whole lot of exam room walls. Construction began in late 2019; the first step was tearing out everything in the main space.

Then COVID made its way to Buffalo and we headed home for what we thought would be just a couple of weeks. While we spent more than a year working from home, construction continued on our new space! We would tell you about it, but it’s probably easiest to show you. Let’s just say where our building started in 2019 is definitely (and thankfully) not where it is today.

After a year of labor, a complete interior rehaul, a major exterior facelift and all new windows and doors, our 150-year-old building has joined the modern era. With exposed brick walls, open sight lines and tons of natural light, Parkway’s new office is warm, welcoming and ideal for productivity. Being back in the office (with other adults!) is pretty exciting after a year apart, especially with new team members on board. Sharing creative thoughts and discussing client work in-person is refreshing after more than a year behind a screen. It’s nice to feel the energy everyone brings and really experience the personalities that make up our team. With our team growing and exciting construction projects ahead, we have a lot to look forward to.

Exciting construction ahead? Oh yeah, one of the biggest selling points of our building is that it has two apartments. One will stay an apartment and the other is about to become a flexible workspace. We learned during our time working from home that an open office setting doesn’t always serve us best. Sometimes you need a couch, or a door you can shut, or a dedicated virtual meeting space. Expanding into the second story will also give us space to grow our team and our offerings in the future.