The Vancouver Sun daily newspaperVancouver, BCJune 22, 2016•

• Yashar Nijati chats with graphic designer Branson Stephenson at The Aviary in East Vancouver. Nijati started the website 'thisopenspace', which is being dubbed the Airbnb of commercial space. The site offers commercial space for short-term uses such as meetings or photo shoots. MARK VAN MANEN

COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE

WEBS TE CARVES OUT SOME ROOM TO WORK Helps businesses find people offerin g short-term spaces EVAN DUGGAN

A Vancouver entrepreneur has created an online marketplace for users to rent or list properties for short -term commercial uses on an Airbnb-style platform.

The website, called thisopens­pace, launched at the beginning of the year and is now operating in Vancouver, New York City and Toronto. The creator and CEO of the site, Yashar Nijati, says the company is expanding into Ottawa.

Like with Airbnb, thisopens­pace matches hosts with renters through an online booking sys­tem. "It's the Airbnb for commer­cial space," Nijati told The Sun last week. He said there are four main types of uses for the spaces: pop-up retail; event hosting; busi­ness meetings; and film and photo shoots.

Most of the hosts either own or lease coffee shops, warehouses, restaurants or studios. "We've also started seeing people listing their homes for commercial uses for film and photo shoots and for (busi­ness) off-site meetings or training sessions," he said in an interview. "These are all short-term events. We protect all of the bookings with $2 million in liability coverage."

It's free to list and book spaces on the site, which charges hosts a booking fee starting at nine per cent on successful bookings. Nijati says his company pays the insur­ance costs. "It's included in every booking for free; no additional cost." Every host has the right to accept or refuse a booking, and is responsible for knowingwhatuses are allowed under their property's zoning, he said.

great place to h ost small gather­ings.

"The gap that we're really filling is taking that under-utilized ca­pacity and unlocking the hidden potential in those spaces."

Nijati said commercial brokers have also been using the website to find short -term renters for their landlord clients.

Pop-up retail appears to be the major growth market, Nijati said. "The future of retail, certainly, is short-term, rotating spaces.

"We've had seven businesses that opened short-term retail locations through our platform and went on to open permanent spaces in Van-

There's a huge barrier of entry to commercial spaces and a lot of times it's hard to get your foot in the door.

couver alone," he said, adding that they hope to be in a total of six cit­ies by the end of the year. "We're building this thing to be a global company."

Motion Macivor is the owner of aBean Around The World location at Cambie and Hastings streets. He said they started leasing out their coffee shop after hours via thiso­penspace a few months ago.

"We offer it basically as a party­type space," he said. "We have a liquor licence and we have a small kitchen. For us, it's really about ex­tending our operating hours."

we had a guy who was starting up a church and wanted to have some meetings in the space," Macivor said.

To keep an eye on the event, Macivor requires two staff mem­bers to be present during events. He said th isopenspace provides the insurance "and we have a $500 damage deposit that covers any ba­sics; even simple things like people going over their time limit."

Another host user ofthisopens­pace is Zoe Tis shaw, of Park & Fifth dress shop. She recently started using the service to lease out her 800-square foot, seventh-floor studio at the Dominion Building on West Hastings.

Tis shaw said she had been think­ing about renting pop-up spaces for their dress sales business, but then opted for a permanent location.

"We could rent the studio and then rent it out to other people looking for that same type of studio space," she said. "We've had a lot of photographers come in. We've had a couple of pop-up shops, and a couple of events- but mostly photography."

She said the service has helped the shop cover its own rental costs. "We did (cover) abouthalfourrent in June, and in April andMayitwas probably four or five rentals, and that was about a third of the rent."

The shop has valuable inventory, so Tisshaw said she tries to work with the same photographers so she knows who is in the space. "We haven't been able to move a com­puter into the space yet because of a little bit of concern over security, but we're working toward that."

Thisopenspace is also a friend to the commercial real estate indus­try, said Glenn Gardner, a principal with Avis on Young in Vancouver.

But Gardner said thisopenspace hosts who are tenants of the prop­erty need to be careful not to vio­late their lease agreements.

''My main concern would just be that if you're a tenant and you're doing this, make sure you abide by the terms of your lease," he said. "Typically, you would have to go the landlord and say, 'Hey, I'm going to do this, can I get your ap­proval to do that'?" evan@evanduggan.com twitter.com/EvanBDuggan

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City firm set to buy L.A. Times building On ni Gr oup also has tower pr oject

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Vancouver-based developer Onni Group has a preliminary agree­ment to buy the landmark Times Mirror Square in Los Angeles in a deal that could be worth more than $100 million, according to a r eport in the Los Angeles Times.

The building is home to the Los Angeles Times. Tribune Media, the company th:1t owns the paper, an­nounced the sale agreement last month, but did not disclose the buyer or the price. An L.A Times r eportlastweek said the "deal with Onni could still fall apart. A previ­ous agreement to sell the property collapsed earlier this year," but, ac­cording to a person familiar with the deal, "Onnihasprogressedfur­ther in the sales process than the previous potent ial buyer."

The finn has other projects in downtown Los Angeles, including a highrise r esidential tower at 8th and Hill streets. Onni is a family­owned Vancouver developer with offices in Phoenix, Los Angeles, Chicago and Mexico. Vancouver­based Dan Bell of Onni's acquisi­tions group did not return a call from Postmedia seeking comment.

Pedestrians walk past Times Mirror Square in Los Angeles. A Vancouver firm is set to buy the landmark bui lding. RICHARD VOGEL/THE

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The demand for short-term commercial space is growing, said Nijati, a Simon Fraser University graduate, who came to Canada from Iran in 1992.

"There's a huge barrier of entry to commercial spaces and a lot of times it's hard to get your foot in the door," he said. "Coffee shops that close after 6 p.m., they're a

His cafe is just starting to get traction with the service, he said. "For the month of June, I think it's going to work out to about eight hours of extra operating use."

"There's some pretty cool spac­es on (the website) that would be pretty unique to host events in," he said. "Landlords are looking for long-term tenants and I think this could be a way to help get some income into the space when it's va­cant."

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Most of their renters are host­ing birthday parties. "Last week,

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