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I often work from home, but I've long been part of a coworking space down where I live. They've got a great model because they're a non-profit, and partake in a

I often work from home, but I've long been part of a coworking space down where I live. They've got a great model because they're a non-profit, and partake in all sorts of things to help local businesses, like accelerators, talks, etc. I feel like that's the right model for this type of thing, because it does seem like the unit economics don't work for profit-driven business. https://www.weare1909.org/ https://www.weare1909.org/

abfan1127 3y ago
how much of this coworking space is supported by taxes (via West Palm Beach Downtown Development Authority)?
- danielvaughn 3y ago
  That's a good question, I don't have an answer unfortunately. I can say that I pay about $100/month for an open-seating membership. It's something like $300 for a dedicated desk. Pretty cheap, especially for the area, so I imagine there's quite a bit of support (though idk where it comes from).
zeruch 3y ago
Same (and bonus, it operates from the perspective of an Arts non-profit, so I have an art studio for myself that doubles as an office, but I can still use the co-working space at will, 24-7): https://www.localcolorsj.org/ https://www.localcolorsj.org/
derefr 3y ago
Interesting; makes me see the potential of a coworking space from a very different perspective — not as "a bunch of businesses renting space" but rather as a generalization of a maker-space, for people who aren't necessarily making physical goods. Though admittedly it'd be really cool if there was a co-working space that included maker-space facilities, both for the constant use of the people who are makers, and for the less-frequent use by the people who aren't. (And so that the people who are makers would end up seated next to the people who aren't. This starts to get into "arts college" territory — where someone doing an illustration project can wander over to a friend in the woodworking department to get their illustration turned into a carving...) Heck, while we're at it, let's throw in other facilities that would lure in people with complementary skillsets to most businesses. A teeny-tiny colo in the basement for your dev servers! Podcast recording rooms! A screening room for videos!
- danielvaughn 3y ago
  Funny enough, this has been kind of a dream of mine. I didn't go to a normal university, I went to art school (memphis college of art). The college shut down back in 2020, and though I'm not sure what became of the building, I really wanted to see it turned into a kind of co-working space with all the same facilities that a college offers. It was small enough that it would have been doable. You could turn the cafeteria into a coffee-shop, the auditorium into a concert hall, and everything else into individual membership shops. It would've been amazing.

abfan1127 3y ago

how much of this coworking space is supported by taxes (via West Palm Beach Downtown Development Authority)?

danielvaughn 3y ago
That's a good question, I don't have an answer unfortunately. I can say that I pay about $100/month for an open-seating membership. It's something like $300 for a dedicated desk. Pretty cheap, especially for the area, so I imagine there's quite a bit of support (though idk where it comes from).

zeruch 3y ago

Same (and bonus, it operates from the perspective of an Arts non-profit, so I have an art studio for myself that doubles as an office, but I can still use the co-working space at will, 24-7): https://www.localcolorsj.org/ https://www.localcolorsj.org/

derefr 3y ago

Interesting; makes me see the potential of a coworking space from a very different perspective — not as "a bunch of businesses renting space" but rather as a generalization of a maker-space, for people who aren't necessarily making physical goods. Though admittedly it'd be really cool if there was a co-working space that included maker-space facilities, both for the constant use of the people who are makers, and for the less-frequent use by the people who aren't. (And so that the people who are makers would end up seated next to the people who aren't. This starts to get into "arts college" territory — where someone doing an illustration project can wander over to a friend in the woodworking department to get their illustration turned into a carving...) Heck, while we're at it, let's throw in other facilities that would lure in people with complementary skillsets to most businesses. A teeny-tiny colo in the basement for your dev servers! Podcast recording rooms! A screening room for videos!

danielvaughn 3y ago
Funny enough, this has been kind of a dream of mine. I didn't go to a normal university, I went to art school (memphis college of art). The college shut down back in 2020, and though I'm not sure what became of the building, I really wanted to see it turned into a kind of co-working space with all the same facilities that a college offers. It was small enough that it would have been doable. You could turn the cafeteria into a coffee-shop, the auditorium into a concert hall, and everything else into individual membership shops. It would've been amazing.