The office laid our foundations. In 1960, Oxford was born out of a handshake between two entrepreneurs to develop a single medical office building in Edmonton. As the future of work evolves, we too have evolved to meet our customers’ needs. Today our global workplace portfolio stands at 30 million square feet. From humble beginnings, our growth story has had one central character – our customers.
Customers are at the heart of every decision we make and we pride ourselves on anticipating their needs. To learn more, we sat down with two customers at our Richmond-Adelaide Centre in Toronto’s downtown core. Samantha Scimmi is Chief Operating Officer at Loopstra Nixon LLP, a client-centered law firm, shaping the future of business and public law in Canada. Susie Ibbotson is Senior Director of Marketing & Communications at Slalom a next-generation professional services company creating value at the intersection of business, technology, and humanity. No matter the industry, our teams’ experience and future-focused approach forge deep relationships to deliver the best workspaces that power the best talent. Samantha and Susie share how our partnership is enhancing performance and enriching culture.
Q: Tell us about your journey with Oxford
Susie Ibbotson: We moved into 85 Richmond Street West in early 2020. It was the first time we had enough space to be able to accommodate all our employees. As a heritage building, the exterior is just so charming and a lot of the original architecture has been retained inside. Then you come up to our office and you’re like, ‘wow, this is so modern’. We built out our three-floor, 50,500 square foot workplace to encourage collaboration. We’re here to serve clients and to do that effectively, we need to have space to come together. We host clients and workshops almost every single day in the office. We’re using our space and every opportunity that we have to bring our people together and to remind them we’re very much a fiercely human consulting company.
Samantha Scimmi: We opened our downtown office originally at Oxford’s 120 Adelaide Street West and quickly needed additional space. While we were looking at how we could make things work, our Oxford leasing manager Monica suggested moving into a new suite at 130 Adelaide Street West. What started as a move to take over one floor has now become the entire 28th floor, a portion of the 29th floor and a portion of the 33rd floor. Our growth hasn’t slowed down and it’s great to work with an organization that is supportive and works with us to see how we can leverage different opportunities.
