The day started out with going to the Oaklander hotel and speaking with Theresa Murdoch, who is in human resources at the hotel. We learned about how different events and periods affect the pricing of the hotel and how staffing works. She described how when people do blocks of rooms, they will get a fixed lower rate, whereas when there are things happening in town, and especially in Oakland, room prices go up. She described how when it is move-in week at Pitt prices are 500 to 600 dollars a night, but during normal times they are only around 400 dollars. She said that it is a simple supply and demand affect and that it accounts for slower seasons. Additionally, Theresa talked about how they have the check in on the top floor to elevate the guest experience and then showed us the new pizza and wine restaurant that they are building on the bottom floor of the hotel.

After we left the hotel, we had a quick class session with Dr. Ray Jones and then headed to Lawrenceville. The first place we stopped was Ice House, which is an affordable artist space located inside an old ice house, hence the name. There, we talked to Kara Kimicata from the Lawrenceville Corporation. She discussed how the lawrenceville Corporation works and what they do for the community. She talked about how they help businesses in the 30 block area that Lawrenceville is by doing things like helping with marketing, grants, and other ideas that business owners have. She discussed how when new things want to come into the area they always do a community talk where concerns can be shared before a business come into town and if there are issues they can figure out the best course of action. Furthermore she discussed different things they do in the community like lunch and learns for the business owners and how one of the most recent successful lunch and learns was on mental health and how to help as business owner. Once we finished at Ice House we walked to Millies and got ice cream before going to Field Day a co-working space.

Once at Field Day, we talked to Zachary Ciccone, the owner, and Emi Driscoll, who works in Field Day’s business operations. Zachary talked about how they got into the co-working space business, and that before Field Day, they owned a different co-working space in East Liberty called Beauty Lounge, which was different because primarily moms went there for a quiet place to work away from their kids, and it just naturally turned into that atmosphere. He explained that the experience with that adventure was different than Field Day because Field Day is a more curated experience with a lot of thought behind it. Zachary described that when Field Day came about it was more focused on office spaces for rent for small businesses or people who work for larger companies, but just need an office. He also talked about how they are trying to create a new working environment because people now have the most freedom in the way they work and can choose how they want to spend there work day simply in the morning since a lot of work is remote. He stated that this is part of the reason they went from only monthly packages to where you can do day passes. Additionally, Zachary described how his co-working space might not be the same as the one we see in Ireland the principles of co-working are still the same because they are spaces where people can work with others. After we talked with Zachary we spoke with Emi who works in Field Days Business operations and she discussed different projects they are doing like adding workout classes on the roof and the plans of looking into a gym space and cold plunge. She then gave us a tour of the space and took us up to the rooftop where she talked about the different types of events they host up there and how the company is always evolving because co-working is always evolving.

From Field Day, we went on a walking tour with Bruce Chan, who took us around the neighborhood on the main street and talked about some of the history and different businesses. He also talked about how the main road turns into a state road as you are coming out of Lower Lawrenceville, and that’s why the atmosphere is slightly different. We then went into the Market House which was an old bank, but is now a bunch of different small shops which I ended up buying a cute little glass dish there. From there, we went to dinner at Lawrence Hall, which is a food hall, and then I ended the day by walking around the area and getting macarons. All in all it was a packed day, but I learned a bunch of new things.