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This article was published 27/3/2017 (1271 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Computer software developer iQmetrix is nearly doubling the size of its Winnipeg office and adding more than 100 new employees over the next year or so as it continues to expand its product line.

The Vancouver-based firm, which also has offices in Regina, Charlotte, N.C., Denver, Col., the Philippines and Australia, is in the process of adding another 8,274 square feet to the 10,000 square feet it was already leasing in the Centrepoint office/retail building at 311 Portage Ave.

The extra space will enable the Winnipeg office to add another 108 employees to its current staff of 95, Krystal Ho, the firm’s director of corporate relations, said..

Ho said the new workers will be added over the course of the next year or so, and will include product managers, product architects, software developers, software designers, quality-assurance analysts and business analysts.

She said iQmetrix anticipated it eventually would need more space when it leased its original 10,000-square feet on the second floor of the building. So it also negotiated the right of first refusal on the rest of the space on the floor, and that’s what it is now expanding into.

Construction work is already underway, and Ho said the firm hopes to have the new space ready for occupancy April 1.

iQmetrix is best known for its wireless retail point-of-sale software, but Ho said many of the new hires will be working on other retail software products the company is developing.

"We’re expanding our product line into different markets. We were always known as the wireless guys, but now we’re branching into other retail verticals like clothing and electronics," she explained.

The new space will also include a new testing lab where customers can try out the new products.

"Right now it (testing) is just kind of (done) everywhere," she said. "So we’re building a new dedicated space for it."

IQMetrix is one of four tenants in the five-storey, 100,000-square-foot Centrepoint building. Anchor tenant Stantec leases the top three floors, while the Merchant Bar and Kitchen and a new 2,400-square-foot Tim Hortons Cafe & Bake Shop both occupy spaces on the main floor.

The other main-floor tenant is a new 7,000-square-foot Brown’s Socialhouse restaurant which is expected to open sometime next month.

Brad King, an office sales and leasing specialist with the Winnipeg office of Cushman & Wakefield, said the Tim Hortons Cafe & Bake Shop concept is new to the Winnipeg market, although not the first in Canada.

Once the Brown’s Socialhouse restaurant opens, the building will be fully occupied. King noted it often takes a while for a new building to become fully leased. In Centrepoint’s case, it took about two years.

Ho said iQmetrix’s Winnipeg employees were among 377 company employees who recently attended a six-day camping and team-building retreat in Hawaii. This is the ninth year the company has taken its employees on a winter getaway. Last year they went to Cuba, and the year before to Nicaragua.

Ho said the theme of this year’s retreat was "mind, body and soul," and included a combination of leisure activities, such as surfing, horseback riding and paddle boarding, and self-improvement classes.

At the end of the retreat, all of the tents and camping gear used by the employees was donated to disaster relief organizations in Hawaii, and unopened food was donated to local food banks, she added.

murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca