RAW Reinvents Historic Building As Tech Hub

For RAW Design founder Roland Rom Colthoff, turning a historic Waterloo building into a modern tech hub is not necessarily about making a lot of changes. Especially if the space is already pretty cool.

“The nice thing about the building was that it was quite a robust structure. And there was just not a lot there,” Colthoff said.

Colthoff, with project architect Johanna Stille, was charged with transforming Waterloo’s former police station (and a longtime insurance company space) into a new, 20K SF data hub for Communitech, a tech innovation centre that supports the tech community.

“A lot of the work we ended up doing was just clearing out the space. Removing the old holding cells for instance,” Stille said.

Making space is never a bad thing when it comes to tech startups. Tech companies tend to be youth-driven. And they love their space, preferably the high ceilings, large spaces and brick walls of old factory and industrial buildings.

“It’s a mobile workforce. Very low budget. Things like esthetics and a more active space are more important,” said Jesse Rodgers, the former director of Waterloo’s startup incubator Velocity and current CEO of the Halifax-based Volta Labs. “It’s really all about it being an awesome space. It’s all you need. At least it’s what you think is all you need. But then the reality sets in.”

The new Communitech building at 14 Erb St. West certainly has “awesome” in spades. Colthoff said they kept the sliding metal fire doors, and the impressive wooden lobby with its lengthy reception table.

A heavy-doored bank vault now serves as a kitchen space, leading into an open, communal area.

“It was a mess, yes, when we started. But it was a handsome building. An important building, and impressive building to work on,” Colthoff said.

The historically designated 137-year-old structure houses, among other things, Canada’s Open Data Exchange. It is where startups, misize companies and large enterprises can mine, augment and share the potential of Big Data. The hope is that the exchange will bring more energy into the region’s already-vibrant tech scene.

This is not RAW’s first go-around in Kitchener-Waterloo’s tech hub. The firm just finished work on Factory Square, a downtown conversion of a 1970s building that once housed BlackBerry.

RAW also worked on the conversion of The Tannery District, a two-block, 400K SF industrial building that has housed various tech companies, including Google, Desire2Learn and Communitech. Rodgers recalls checking out the Tannery in its pre-renovated state.

“There was this dusty old piano right in the middle of the floor. You got the impression that they just locked the door and walked away. Still, the potential was obvious.”

Colthoff echoes that sentiment.

“Yeah. It was a really super-rough space.," he said. "A very cool space, but there was a squatter living there at the time.”