Office Space News
1871 Offers Unique Chicago Coworking Incubator
Published April 25th, 2012 by Jennifer LeClaire
CHICAGO—More and more often, incubators are blending with coworking office space. The latest example is I’ve come across is 1871.
1871 opens next week as Chicago’s new digital start up center. 1871 features a massive coworking space for about 400 entrepreneurs, office space for leading venture capital firms, classroom space, and partnerships with leading universities.
“We couldn’t be more excited about the partnership with Excelerate Labs,” says Kevin Willer, president and CEO of the Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center, which manages 1871. “Excelerate is a perfect match with the strategic objectives of 1871: strengthening Chicago’s digital community and helping to build great technology businesses.”
1871 is positioning itself as the place where Chicago’s digital start-ups get their start. It is a not-for-profit tech hub that provides Chicago’s start-up community with access to mentors, investors, partners and peers, as well as a wide array of programming, including classes, special events and conferences.
The 50,000 -square-foot facility, which offers one of the largest coworking areas I’ve ever seen, is located in the historic Merchandise Mart. The building can accommodate as many as 500 entrepreneurs, developers, designers and students in its co-working office space.
Three types of coworking memberships offer choices for entrepreneurs in different stages of building their businesses. Reserved coworking members have their own desks and storage; shared coworking members have round-the-clock access to the space; and night/weekend members have access in the evenings and on weekends.
Todd Heiser, design director at global architecture firm Gensler, designed the 1871 space. In doing so, his team visited incubators, accelerators, coworking spaces, even coffee shops—any place that could teach them how people were connecting, collaborating and getting work done in non-traditional workplace environments.
“We wanted to understand the ‘secret-sauce’ of how these highly compelling work spaces, from the amenities they offer to the entrepreneurs who use them, work,” Heiser says. “After meeting with the project stakeholders to gather feedback, we assembled our research into a vision document that would guide our work as we moved forward.”
If you are a startup in Chicago and you are into all things tech, here’s some advice: apply for a space in 1871 now before the spaces are filled.
Be sure to follow 1871 on Twitter.
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