A Haven for NOTL's remote workers

Last year, after numerous trips to their favourite vacation spot where they feel the most relaxed (Niagara-on-the-Lake, of course), Toronto entrepreneurial couple Reggie Tan and Madaline Zannes moved into a home in the Old Town. This year, they are opening Niagara-on-the-Lake’s first coworking space.

“We moved here to bring a healthier rhythm to our lives,” said Zannes, a lawyer with her own firm in Toronto. “We always vacationed here,” added Tan.

Tan, who owns a marketing agency, works from home. “I don't tactically need a (separate) space, but there's a whole aspect of life” to consider, he said. “You're living at home and you're working from home and you kind of want to be able to have better separation.”

Haven, on the second floor of Garrison Plaza at the corner of Mississagua and Mary Streets, offers a professional remote-work environment for business owners, creative entrepreneurs, freelancers, remote workers and “all-around digital nomads.”

Before embarking on this plan, Zannes and Tan conducted a market survey to determine if need exists in NOTL for a space like this. They discovered there is “a sizeable remote working community here,” said Zannes, who hopes to bring people together to create energy, innovation and community.

No strangers to artificial intelligence, Tan and Zannes used AI to scour the internet on everything they could find on rural coworking. They downloaded blog posts and reddit threads, materials, documents and information, into a large language model (LLM), an artificial intelligence program that can recognize and generate text. They named the repository of all of this information Garrison.

Garrison “helped us with better decision-making as we were planning this,” said Tan. For example, they discovered that many community managers, people who would organize and manage a coworking space, are often just working behind a chat app, answering questions posed by users of the space.

A lot of those kinds of problems can be handled by typing the questions directly into Garrison, allowing the community manager to walk around “to talk to people and build community,” said Tan.

Type a question to Garrison via Whatsapp, such as ‘tell me why a coworking space is important in a rural community,’ and in seconds a clear and concise answer appears, outlining six valid reasons.

One of the benefits of coworking space is it allows its users to build community and make connections in an area where it’s often easy to feel isolated. Because professionals from various fields can meet, share ideas and potentially collaborate, it becomes a rich source for networking.

Haven can also keep talent in NOTL, instead of professionals seeking urban coworking centres, or even maybe moving to a city. This can boost the local economy and contribute to economic development.

Amazing innovation is another bonus that can come from sharing a diversity of ideas, especially when combined with urban amenities in a rural setting such as amazing wifi, a tech suite with access to podcasting equipment, green screens, teleprompters, VR headsets, meditation headbands and other emerging technology.

Haven’s entrance is just to the right of Avondale. Zannes and Tan mentioned the loss of beloved local business such as BarBea, Ruffino’s, and soon, Willow Cakes and Pastries will close their storefront. Virgil’s “Starbucks used to be a popular place for meetings or for working outside of the home,” said Zannes, but they also closed their doors.

The 1700-square-foot office area hosts an office for Zanne’s law firm, with an adjacent meeting room near a quiet space from which to make private phone calls. Several sit/stand desks occupy another room.

In the largest room sits a ‘hot desk’ — a large table where people can work together or independently. The desk can be moved so the room can be used to host small gatherings to pitch business ideas, or host listening parties for song releases or album launches. A kitchen with high-end amenities allows for informal conversations over latte and biscotti.

Fees for accessing Haven are variable, depending on one’s needs, but they are currently offering a $50 deal for the rest of January. Access their fee schedule and other information (and Garrison) via their website at havenworkspace.ca

The name Haven came to Zannes who said that “Niagara-on-the-Lake felt like a haven to me originally. And you know, when you move somewhere that feels like that, you start to get used to the space around it. It starts to transform a little bit to where it's just home, not like a getaway anymore. Home. I wanted to bring that feeling here — it’s not just a place here and there that you go to, it's actually a home. A work home.”