A post from Andy Skelton that Automattic might be looking to open a professional office here in Austin.

I for one would love to work on an office with other Austin WordPress professional. I’ve made 90% of my living these past 10 months working on WordPress client project and do not intend to stop anytime soon.

A WordPress professional office could be something like the co-working locations that are now springing up in cities all across the nation. This would be somewhat different in that instead of everyone working on a broad range of projects, everyone would be working on WordPress client projects. From a collaboration perspective this could be huge.

I’ve had a chance to roll this around in my head a few time and have started thinking about some of the downside issue for me.

• Considering the current state of real estate in general, finding a short-term lease location in central Austin might be an issue.
• what will be the user cost of this venture? Will I be locked into a lease commitment for space in the office?
• Why would I want to consider this option if I can work for free out of my house already? Meaning I’d need to drive to an office to do basically the same think I can do at home. I do realize the upside is the potential collaboration with Andy and other Austin WordPress professionals. Question is if it’s enough of a consistent gain. Can the same or similar collaboration be gained from the wp-hackers mailing list?
• What will be the price of gasoline by the time this concept is realized? Considering gas in Austin is now $4.00/gallon what is my added (if any) cost for driving into an office 3-5 days a week?