Downtown Ann Arbor is set to cut the ribbon on its second bike house tomorrow, and the first spots in it are reserved for employees working in city's center.
A bike house is a small, secure facility where users can store and access their bicycles, sort of like a locker room for bikes. Renters pay an annual or monthly fee to rent a space in the bike house.
Local high-growth tech startups
Duo Security and
DeepField helped inspire the construction, offering to prepay for reserved spots in the new
Ann Ashely Bike House for their employees. Both companies call downtown Ann Arbor home and have been hiring dozens of new employees, mostly young people, over the last year.
"We have a lot of young people who tend to bike to work," says Lorne Groe, CFO & COO of DeepField. "The average age of our employees is in the late 20s. Our current space wouldn’t allow us to have bikes in the office. It's also not the best place to have bikes."
Other local businesses have jumped on the bandwagon, reserving spaces in the new bike house.
"It's not just the tech companies," says Nancy Shore, business services director for
getdowntown program. "We also have people who reserve spaces who work at
Mighty Good Coffee Roasting Coffee and
Workantile."
Employees from
Thermo Fisher Scientific,
Olark and
WATS have also signed on to take over spots.
The Ann Ashley Bike House is downtown Ann Arbor's second bike house. It is occupying a formerly dead space in the Ann Ashley Parking Structure. Construction was paid for by the
Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority. The first one was built in the Maynard Parking Structure.
Source: Nancy Shore, business services director for getdowntown
Writer: Jon Zemke
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