Longboat Key Chamber of Commerce expands

For a lot of people, Longboat Key is a home away from home.

Now people on Longboat Key can have an office away from their office, too. The Longboat Key Chamber of Commerce recently completed a remodeling project and added a boardroom and coworking space in the organization's offices at 5390 Gulf of Mexico Drive. 

Chamber President Gail Loefgren brought the idea to the chamber’s board of directors late last year. The previous adjacent tenant, Key Cleaners, had vacated the space and the only other tenants were two men renting on a monthly basis.

There was an opportunity to take over both leases — to open up the office space and store files back there. Board member and future chair Darrin Caldwell spoke up. Maybe there was space for an office for his company, WrightWay Emergency Services, back there, too. 

“My vision was storage,” Loefgren said. “Darrin’s (Caldwell’s) vision was this.” 

“This” is a bright, open boardroom behind the chamber’s main area with multiple open working options, a mini-fridge and a coffee maker. At the back is WrightWay’s new office, which features a conference table and space for events. The remodel started in December and finished in early April. 

“I will never do a remodel in my home,” Loefgren said. “This was enough. This was four months of chaos. … We had visitors coming in all the time. At one point I was doing acrobatics to get to them.” 

The end product was well worth it, though, she said.

Loefgren fielded astonished comments from members at the April 7 Annual Meeting, where people saw the space for the first time.

Caldwell and Loefgren agreed that an upgrade was long overdue, so they got down to it. 

“One big need was for a boardroom,” Loefgren said. “We were meeting around this little gray table and we were meeting under 20th century conditions. We were putting my cell phone in a glass so that if people couldn't make the meeting, we could hear them. It was just not pleasant, and it was cramped. It was crowded and it wasn't professional. Darrin (Caldwell) had in mind more of a professional look for the chamber.”

Despite the pandemic, the chamber has experienced a rise in membership over the past two years as more companies move to Florida.

Not everyone has office space on the island, so this provides members a place that doesn't come equipped with a steering wheel and seat belts to get some work done. 

“They have a nice space that they can come in and just drop in. hook onto our Wi-Fi, use the TV, Zoom conference calls, whatever they need to do,” Loefgren said. “This is their office away from their office, just for convenience's sake. We'll get the word out and more people begin to use it. It should be nice to be busy.''

Loefgren added that members who belong to condominium associations can reserve the space for board meetings, as well. 

Next, they’ll focus on remodeling the front of the chamber office and putting in new carpets, but for now, Loefgren hopes to rebrand the chamber as a community space for the people of Longboat Key. Eventually, Loefgren would like to host community events and networking sessions there. The space isn’t just for members; anyone from the community is welcome to come by. 

“I think people will get the message, and people will begin to use it, which will be great, because that's the whole purpose,” Loefgren said. “We'd like this to become a community place where the community can use it and they know it's available. … It opens up a lot of possibilities for us.”