What's in favour of renting an office in St. Gallen? This becomes clear when you take a closer look at the special features of the town with just under 80,000 inhabitants. Located on the River Steinach, the city of St. Gallen lies in the centre of Eastern Switzerland near Lake Constance and can look back on a long economic history. Due to its comparatively small territory, the city had to prioritise trade early on: As a result, it flourished under the canvas and cotton trade, but later also embroidery. Today, St. Gallen is recognised as a global market leader in the precision and ICT sector. Practice-oriented research - for example in cooperation with the University of St. Gallen - enables companies in these sectors to achieve innovations in the high-tech industry and thus fully utilise their growth potential.
The city is also considered a cultural metropolis in Eastern Switzerland, with facilities such as the Lokremise playing a central role. This is the largest locomotive depot in Switzerland, which is now used as the city's cultural centre. The historic old town of St. Gallen with its abbey district and baroque cathedral (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) contributes significantly to the charm of the metropolis. Local recreational areas such as the Peter and Paul Wildlife Park or the recently reopened banks of the Steinach also make an important contribution to the high quality of life. To summarise, it is not without reason that this is one of Switzerland's most attractive business locations.
There are numerous incentives in favour of an office or shared office in St. Gallen. For example, the city's geographical location offers significant advantages: Thanks to its central location in Eastern Switzerland and good transport links, St. Gallen facilitates regional and international networking for all companies. The city is also located in the quadrangle (Germany-Switzerland-Austria-Liechtenstein), which promotes Europe-wide co-operation between companies. Almost 500 years ago, the city itself sold high-quality textiles throughout most of Europe - today, over 90 per cent of St. Gallen's products are exported.
There are three main economic clusters in St. Gallen: numerous companies in the textile industry, but also in the ICT and precision industries, have come together here and are utilising the city's first-class research and educational facilities, as well as the canton's support for their progress. Compared to the Swiss average, there are twice as many companies in the precision industry to be found here.
The social advantages of the city also speak in favour of renting an office in St. Gallen. The good sports and recreational facilities in the mountain and lake city make it possible to organise your own leisure time in a varied and fulfilling way. The canton of St. Gallen is a popular destination for tourists - with its proximity to Lake Constance also playing a key role. The attractiveness of the surrounding area ensures that the city draws skilled workers from all sectors.
If you are looking for office space in St. Gallen, rental prices vary greatly. After all, factors such as the property's transport links, as well as its fixtures and fittings and operating costs, influence the rental costs. However, the location of the commercial space is the main factor that determines the rental costs per square metre. If you want to rent an office, the following neighbourhoods in the city are the most expensive due to their popularity:
In the Winkeln neighbourhood, on the other hand, rents for both living space and office space are among the cheapest. The reason for this is that Winkeln is separated from the rest of the city by the River Sitter. If you want to get to the centre, you first have to cross one of the numerous Sitter bridges. The St. Georgen neighbourhood is also considered comparatively affordable. On maison.work, you can rent your office space for around CHF 140 per square metre per year - but there is no upper limit to the rental costs.
St. Gallen is an important transport hub in the east of Switzerland. With a regional airport in St. Gallen Altenrhein and the proximity to Zurich's Kloten Airport - which is only about an hour's drive away - important connections are also made easier for companies. St. Gallen railway station is not only designed for domestic trains: It also offers important rail connections to Germany and Austria. The more than 75,000 daily rail travellers can also take advantage of long-distance connections here, such as direct connections to Paris or regional services with the S1 to S82 trains. In recent years, the city has made numerous investments to further expand and improve St. Gallen's infrastructure - an important advantage for new companies in particular when choosing a location.
Thanks to the green and most modern data centres in Eastern Switzerland in nearby Gais or Gossau, companies with high data volumes in St. Gallen are also supported with the right digital infrastructure. Thanks to the local centre of excellence for the ICT sector alone, it can be assumed that the bandwidth for your everyday workflow is perfectly adequate.
As mentioned at the beginning, there are several economic clusters in St. Gallen. On the one hand, the ICT sector is represented by the "IT St. Gallen rocks!" cluster: The initiative brings together ICT companies and educational institutions for a comprehensive exchange and cooperation. Over 2'000 ICT companies are based in the canton of St. Gallen, which is why this economic cluster is so important for the region. Start-ups are also fully supported by clusters such as this one. Companies such as Frontify AG and Meteomatics AG are global players in this sector.
The textile cluster is also an important pillar of St. Gallen's economy. From Filtex AG to Sturmberg GmbH, there are numerous companies in St. Gallen that are dedicated to processing high-quality textiles and work closely together on innovations. St. Gallen embroidery is known worldwide for good reason - prestigious companies such as Akis bring the high-quality textiles from Eastern Switzerland to international catwalks. The mechanical, electrical and metal industry (MEM) is also one of the largest economic sectors in St. Gallen. Over 1'300 workplaces of this type are located in and around St. Gallen - which is why around 18 per cent of all MEM employees are based in the area.
With maison.work, you can find the most attractive office space in the city of St. Gallen for your business in no time at all. No matter which property you are looking for the perfect workflow - you can quickly and easily find something suitable among the 51 search results. We have specialised in marketing commercially used properties since August 2023 and are working around the clock to expand the number of listings. To this end, we cooperate with the most important property experts in Switzerland. Our search function and its filters have been designed to guide you to the right property in the most user-friendly way possible. Criteria such as your budget, the desired area and, of course, the location are taken into account.
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