Empower U Spotlight Series

About: The Collective is the ultimate flexible workspace. Our collaborative space offers private offices, designated desks, and hot desks in a fully equipped, versatile office setting.

Interview: Omar Almanza, Property Manager of Regency Landing

Address: 10730 Pacific St Suite 040, Omaha, NE 68114

Specialty: Co-working spaces

Interviewer: Well, Omar, thanks for joining me today. Tell me a little bit about the collective and what your role specifically is with them.

Interviewee: Yeah, so I am the property manager for Regency Landing whole and then the leasing kind of individual for the collective. So the collective is a co working space. So we offer a ton of different options. So we have, from the very lowest is virtual membership. So anyone that needs a mailing service or just an address to kind of get use of the space. So whether that be conference rooms, the podcast room, or just you just need a professional meeting space for individuals, you want to start with that lowest tier. From there we have a hot desk, which is just, I know it’s kind of confusing. People are like, what’s a hot desk?

Interviewee: You know, but it is a just a regular co working desk. So it’s a first come, first serve desk. We have a series of desks throughout the collective that you get to just show up if you want it for a day pass, a week pass, or a month to month option. We have that. A step above from that is our designated desk. So just as the name suggests, a desk designated for you. So you get to leave your monitors there, you have a little storage cubby. And then from there we have our private offices.

Interviewee: So I know you’ve seen a couple of them, but yeah, we have small, medium, large, and then kind of like an even bigger one. And as you guys see over here, we have the suites over here. So yeah, and then we have. Yeah, so on just an hourly basis we have the podcast room. So if you need any type of content media creation or you want to do a full fledged podcast in there, you can rent it by the hour. And then we have two size conference rooms, a small one and a large one.

Interviewer: Okay, that’s great.

Interviewee: That’s basically what we provide there at the collective.

Interviewer: That’s excellent. Tell me a little bit about the community benefit of being a part of a collective.

Interviewee: Yeah, well, one, I mean, so we just get a ton of different companies down there. So one thing that I love to see is when you get to hear, you know, a company with that’s, you know, an accountant is now working with insurance company that’s on the other side of the building. So just having that kind of community, that network there that you get to see, you know, when you’re walking down the hallway, you get to see all of the different logos on the windows. And then it kind of intrigues, you know, sparks some interest and curiosity and a lot of the people down there. I’m a little biased, but are Very nice, friendly, and are willing to kind of communicate with you. So I think just having that ability to have a ton of different companies and offerings and services all in one place just kind of stands out.

Interviewer: Absolutely. So tell me about some of the clients that you guys have. Are they all solo entrepreneurs? Do you have bigger businesses that rent from you guys? What are the types of individuals that you have?

Interviewee: Yeah, so we have everything from just regular individuals that want to get out of the house, they work from home, and they have kids screaming in one room and a mad husband or wife in the other room. So we start. We see people like that, we see people that are wanting to start, like, start up different companies. And then we have regular businesses, we have venture capitalists, we have a ton of different offerings down there. We had Hayes and Associates, one of the accounting firms that we had down there. They had like half of the Collective at one point, and now they have their. It was kind of there in between. They were building out a full space, and so they actually.

Interviewee: They were actually at the Collection Collective for over a year. And so they finally just finished out their build out over on the Centrus building.

Interviewer: So that’s incredible. Well, and it’s nice that you guys serve not only individuals, but also bigger companies too. The diversity within that. Tell me a little bit about the amenities that the Collective.

Interviewee: Yeah, so one thing that is always the selling point, and that’s something that’s really easy, is just. It’s one flat monthly rate. So that includes your utilities, the Internet, meeting spaces, snacks. Got a lot of good snacks down there. Some healthy, some not so healthy, but we gotta please everybody. Yes. Coffee machines and then beverages. Yeah, we have a full beverage cooler.

Interviewee: And one of the things that I always. That usually tends to get people, you know, in the door is, you know, if they want something specific, I’ll go out to Sam’s club and I’ll get it for them. So I try to try to please everybody, basically, but. But yeah, with each of the memberships, and I kind of, kind of glossed over it, but the. With each of the memberships, you get a bucket of hours for those auxiliary rooms. So the conference rooms and the podcast room as well. So obviously on the lower tiers, you get less hours per month, and those. Those hours don’t transfer over, but you get a bucket of those every single month to utilize with whatever you need to do for your business.

Interviewer: Okay, good to know. It’s nice you guys really take care of having a business space, but at the same time taking care of Some of the not so fun things of making sure the space is stocked, making clean. You’ve got the Internet set up.

Interviewee: Yep. Yeah. One of the funny things that when Hayes and Associates was leaving was one of their. One of their employees, you know, I talked to him, was like, you guys excited to move into your new space? And he goes, yeah, I’m really excited. But I was over there the other day, and I didn’t see any snacks or coffee machines, and I’m gonna be really missing that from the collective. So I try to.

Interviewer: Well, that’s amazing. Tell me a little bit about. So, obviously, the collective is within Regency Landing property. Tell me about the clientele that’s generally within this area and maybe the just benefit of the location.

Interviewee: Yeah, I mean, it’s definitely high affluence area. You know, there’s. There’s a lot of money in this area, but there’s a lot of companies and a lot of smaller businesses that you wouldn’t expect to be around. So, for example, you know, there’s. There’s random, you know, agricultural startup fund businesses that I would have never even heard of unless they would have come through my door. So the area itself is just very much. They. You know, it’s.

Interviewee: It’s actually, now that I think about it, it ranges because this is such a unique area where it’s in. It’s in the true center of Omaha, where whether you want to go all the way out west or all the way downtown, it’s basically the same amount either way. So we get kind of anybody from this area all the way through. So. Yeah, it really just depends. We get a lot of different individuals.

Interviewer: Through the doors, but it’s convenient, for sure. I mean, accessibility right off of 680. But being in the Pacific area, you have so much organic traffic, but also resident or commercial traffic that’s coming through. So there’s a lot of diversity.

Interviewee: Oh, yeah. And then just with Regency Landing in general, we have so many different offerings here, and we’re continuing to get more people here and more businesses on site, but it really is a kind of boutique area. So that’s one thing that we’ve tried to avoid here is having kind of the local boutique, artisanal places that can kind of, you know, give a different service that is truly needed in this area, for sure.

Interviewer: Well, not high quality.

Interviewee: Yeah, exactly. I didn’t want to say it.

Interviewer: No, no. All the businesses you guys have worked with and that we’ve got to experience firsthand over as a collective are incredible. Tell me a little Bit more. So back to the Collective. If I was a new business or an individual looking to explore your services, how does that process start with you guys?

Interviewee: Yeah, so it really just depends on what way you want to go. The best way in my opinion is always just to come on site because sometimes, you know, you go to the website and you see some pictures but you don’t really get to feel the atmosphere, the energy of the place. But so I’d always start with, you know, come on site and don’t even just look straight at the collective. Look at what Regency Landing has to offer. We have a ton of different restaurants and services here that are all within walking distance. And you can feel it from, you know, the second you turn right off in Pacific, you start to see all of the businesses. You know, you have superior dental health, you have Twisted Cork. Early Bird via Farina just opened up.

Interviewee: We got Empower you. We have Kleeneats Back nine and you know, and Blue Sky, Pickleball and Patio. I mean it really just. We have so many different offerings here.

Interviewer: It’s expansive. So coming with you guys, do you guys have any promos that you offer to new businesses that are coming in or any promotional services?

Interviewee: Yeah, usually depends. Right now we, we just with. With one of our larger clients, you know, getting fitting out, fitting finishing out their. Their space. We, we have rare, a rare opportunity right now with some of the offices that kind of came up. So we have some of those and, and we’re doing basically, you know, if you sign up for a year, we’ll give you the last month for free. So that’s kind of the one that we’re running right currently at the start of the year, we’ll look at where we are looking where our services are needed and we’ll probably do something with the hot desk and the Designatus then. But stay tuned for that.

Interviewer: That’s good to know. Anything else you want to share about the collective that’s maybe unique from other co working spaces or benefits to you guys?

Interviewee: Yeah, well, you get me. No, but yeah. So the one thing that I always like to say is that so access commercial, we’re up on the second floor and so that’s the, the overall branch, the company that I work for and then the Collective is one of the companies that is under our umbrella. So my office is just on the second floor. And so if there is ever anything that is any type of concern issue at all, I am a couple of steps away. I go straight downstairs and I can go ahead and take care of it right then and there. So if it’s an impromptu tour, if there’s a leak somewhere, if there’s something, whatever it is, I’m right there on site and I can take care of it.

Interviewer: So I think that kind of stands out for sure. Well, we’ve experienced it firsthand at spend night. There’s no major problems that come up, but you guys are so quick to solve and be accessible there, which is excellent. That’s good to hear. Only other things is how can people connect with you or learn more about the collective?

Interviewee: Yeah, absolutely. So they can reach out to the collective. Omaha.com you can look at what we have to offer there. My favorite thing, like I said, is just to come on site. And then you can reach me at my contact information, which is 402-278-2824. You can call, text there, or it’s omarcesscommercial.com you can send me an email, set up a tour, and then we’ll get you on site.

Interviewer: Well, that sounds great. Thanks so much for sharing today. Thank you very much for sharing about yourself and the collective. We appreciate it.