Instant Executive Suites Ease Hassle of Starting Out

When Los Angeles lawyer Howard R. Levine left another firm to start his own practice in April last year, he didn’t want to wrestle with the many questions of design, furniture, equipment and hiring that go with opening a new office.

So Levine opted for an “executive suite” operated by Roxbury Properties at downtown’s Union Bank building.

“Initially, I was in kind of a rush to get space that was moderately priced that also had a respectable look to it,” Levine said. “My main concern at the time was not to get tied up in a long-term lease and not to put up the kind of money to (equip) my own suite of offices. . . . It takes a lot of time and energy to do it.”

Levine is one of many business people who are deciding not to set up their own offices in favor of renting space from an executive suite operation, which provides everything from the office space to the receptionist to the coffee machine. The business took some hard knocks in the early 1980s following a run of company failures, but appears to be bouncing back by appealing to corporations of all sizes looking for cost savings and convenience.

“There’s a lot of space downtown, and the market is kind of soft right now, but there’s a niche for what we do,” said Mike Schmensky, general manager of Roxbury Properties, which runs executive suite operations in parts of two buildings downtown, occupies five floors of office space in San Francisco and is about to open a three-floor set-up in Westwood.

The main advantage to renters is the cost savings, said David Bourne, co-owner of much of the Southern California territory of Headquarters Cos., the nation’s largest executive suites operation with 74 centers nationwide. The San Francisco-based company is owned by the licensees that actually operate the executive suites.

“We do all of the very basic administrative-type tasks and our clients don’t have to pay to hire that staff,” Bourne said.

Besides sharing secretarial employees and receptionists, clients have access to all kinds of office equipment, a shared lounge and reception area and the instant legitimacy that a well-decorated office area provides, Bourne said.

Their phones are answered for them and their mail is sorted, he said. Home-operated businesses can use the executive suites as a mailing address and answering service.

Unfortunately, the aura of business respectability that an instant executive suite can lend does occasionally attract scam artists and criminals, said Cynthia Bronte, marketing vice president for Headquarters Cos. For that reason, the company does an extensive credit and reference check on each applicant, she said.