Welcome to the new Art of Living Austin center

Remember the blog post “Bye bye Lamar center”, in that I had mentioned in the last sentence “its time to translate the learning to a newer and better center”, we the Art of Living family are proud to announce that we have to a large extent (in my eyes) have exceeded that expectation and are almost ready to welcome you all to the new center, got to wait a couple of weeks before it will be officially open for business though. For the impatient few the address is 13091 Pond Springs Road, Suite 208 Austin TX 78729

I think that was a good teaser, now to the actual reality of things. We worked for almost 6 months and churned out 3 different Realtor's before narrowing down to Travis Waldrop who I must say almost miraculously found a space, negotiated a good deal and made us set for the next five years.

What did we gain from this new center? a fair question to ask and here is the list

• 2600 SQFT of open customizable space, mind you even in retail spaces it is not easy to come by. 
• A good retail location, there are advantages to it including extra parking spaces and one contiguous self contained space with better visibility 
• Bigger meditation hall (~300 SQFT bigger than Lamar center) with cross ventilation for fresh air
• Recessed lights in the meditation hall
• A break room/kitchen (no cooking though) with counter tops and cabinets
• Wood laminated floors for the whole center
• 3 independent areas for conducting courses and events
• In terms of sheer square footage we are almost 800 SQFT bigger than Lamar Center
• All the above without substantially increasing our monthly operating expenses

Some of us did visit the under construction center today and were blown away the way it looks. Thanks to some of the volunteers who worked tirelessly in the search and planning phase for the new center. Apart from all the above good things that are coming with the center, it is an achievement to close 1 center and open an another one with only 2 months of non availability. 

February 1st is when we will officially get the keys for the new center and that is when we will be officially open for business. 

Bye bye Lamar center

Back in November 2009,  we started our Art of Living center in Austin and fast forward 6 years later and the time has come to say good bye.

Yes we had great run for 6 years which included innumerable weekly follow ups, happiness programs, yoga and meditation programs, knowledge series to name a few along with a few volunteer training sessions, DSN’s and pre-TTC’s.  

As many would know, this was our first effort in maintaining a physical real estate of our own, proud of the fact that we were the first in Texas and amongst the first in nation to have a physical center. The most important one for us was maintaining the finances in order over the last 6 years. Many thanks to all the volunteers for donating and doing donation drives and most importantly to volunteer their spare time in upkeep and maintenance of the center.Yes it is a great achievement.

We did learn a lot from owning and maintaining the center and we have grown leaps and bounds in terms of memberships and the activities we are doing as a chapter. Most of which can be attributed to having a physical space of our own we could use barring the calendar conflicts.  

As with anything long term, we had our ups and downs, I personally like to believe we had more ups than downs. It wouldn’t be fair if I don’t thank our landlord PS business parks with whom we have maintained a very cordial relationship from the beginning to end. 

Now that we have wound up this place, its time to translate the learning to a newer and better center. It is coming and stay tuned for updates on the same.