Office Space News
Coworking Offices Set to Open in Birmingham, Rochester
Published March 31st, 2009 by Jennifer LeClaire
The coworking movement is making its way across the nation.
In the past week, I’ve read about two new projects that further demonstrate a craving for alternative office space. One of them is in Birmingham and the other in Downtown Rochester, New York. Next, I stumbled upon “South by Southwest 2009,” one of the largest and most widely-covered technology and Internet conferences of the year. The conference is featuring an interactive panel called “Working Alone Sucks: Join the Coworking Revolution.”
Looking for office space in Rochester or Birmingham
If you are looking for a coworking facility near you, chances are there will be one sooner rather than later. The down economy is spurring the trend. For now, let’s take a closer look at two of the latest additions to the alternative office space movement.
We’ll start with Birmingham. I lived in Alabama for a short while and I visited Downtown Birmingham. I was a bit surprised that coworking has already made its way there. It doesn’t have the metro style that bigger cities like New York or Miami do. But, clearly, some of Birmingham’s entrepreneurs are on the cutting edge.
In May, a local entrepreneur plans to open the Birmingham’s first coworking space. Drew Andrews, an author and consultant, has leased a 4,000-square-foot building downtown and plans to rent out desks and space by the day, week or month. He’s calling it Shift Workspace, a novel name for a novel concept in Birmingham office space.
Andrews isn’t launching out based on pure speculation that the Birmingham office market will embrace the novel concept, though. A group of professionals have been meeting each week at a coffee shop to work on projects. So Andrews has sort of a built-in tenant base, except instead of buying sodas and appetizers throughout the day the coworking pros will actually have to pay rent. There’s no word yet on how much the office space will cost.
Meanwhile, Coworking Rochester is leasing some of Downtown Rochester’s 6.6 million square feet of office space for its new venture. Well, sort of. David Moffitt plans to complete renovations on his apartment so he can host a coworking facility. His renovations include bamboo flooring, computer networking equipment and large open spaces. Moffitt plans to charge $8 a day or $125 a month memberships to graphic designers, software developers and other freelancers.
Know about a coworking facility near you? Need to find one? Are you coworking now? Comment below and let us know what you think.
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Mike Sullivan March 31st, 2009 at 12:32 pm
I know I’ve talked in the past about working at home and at Starbucks, but a coworking facility just opened in Lexington, KY. So that’s my new office. It’s called The Awesome Space. It’s not yet open officially, so their site is still geared toward the Incubator concept. But It’s nice… we just need more coworkers. So as you can imagine, I’m a big proponent of coworking.
Jose Castillo March 31st, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Thanks Jennifer-
The concept of coworking is nothing new, but this latest swell is very cool to watch. People losing their jobs and launching out on their own have added to an all ready large population of potential coworkers.
We have just launched our regions first coworking space here in the MountainSouth, Johnson City, TN. http://sparkplaza.com is an all inclusive, shared office space – sweet loft style office with wifi, coffee/tea, conference area, and a community of like minded folks.
Unfortunately, due to our location, we do not offer wireless access on the beach. But the mountains are breathtaking.
Denise Reed April 1st, 2009 at 7:47 am
Connecting Chattanooga to the international trend of memberships with access to shared, collaborative, open-forum workspace, The Concierge Level, LLC (TCL, LLC) is proud to introduce to Chattanooga a new work environment concept: Coworking. “We’ll be offering coworking memberships in April. Our full-service office business center is cutting edge in this movement. We started with the location and now are seeking coworkers. The current international coworking trend is to start with co-workers and then find a space,” says Denise Reed, President and Owner.
According to John Erik Metcalf co-founder of Conjunctured, a coworking group in Austin, Texas, “I love seeing coworking exist in any form or fashion. The folks who [originally] used the word coworking were in an apartment. I think it’s wonderful how it’s evolved. Best of luck in Chattanooga, you and your members are always welcome here.” Conjunctured was the result of John Erik Metcalf coworking at Jelly events, the blogging community and deciding to form a group to find space. The Concierge Level, LLC has the space and is now offering “Jelly! Chattanooga” events and now permanent coworking space with memberships. TCL, LLC is now on Twitter.com as ConciergeLevel and other blogging forums to share our coworking membership updates and “Jelly! Chattanooga” events.
According to an article entitled “Coworking: The Ultimate in Teleworking Flexibility” published by PC World website on October 23, 2007, “…Nationwide, there are roughly 16.2 million self-employed teleworkers and 12.4 million teleworkers employed by an outside party. A 2007 survey of over 2,000 workers showed that 79 percent of workers employed in the private sector and half of workers employed in the public sector were worried about feeling isolated and missing human interaction if they were to start telecommuting.”
All TCL, LLC’s coworking memberships offer access to designated, shared, collaborative, open-forum workspace. A la carte services available such as training room to seat up to 30 lecture style, private conference room with seating for eight guests or day office with seating for three by the hour, half-day, and full day. Coworking Memberships may be combined with Virtual Office Services and subject to those terms. This allows an opportunity for co-workers to take advantage of only services they need, as they need them, such as virtual office services and permanent private office rental on a month-to-month basis.
At your service,
http://www.theconciergelevel.com
Jennifer LeClaire April 7th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
I recently had the pleasure of a virtual tour of Jose’s coworking space in Johnson City. He’s got a great set up there, including awesome coffee. Everything is on wheels to make it easier to share. I reckon the space is going to fill up fast. We’ll talk more about his space in the coming weeks.
Melanie Jones April 8th, 2009 at 9:34 am
Coworking is really gaining a lot of ground in this down economy. I am not sure if that’s what’s causing it or if it’s just a concept whose time has come. With all the layoffs, though, I can see how this would be a way for creative people to share a sense of community. It can be depressing to be out of work.
Elizabeth Sanchez April 10th, 2009 at 7:35 am
There’s no way coworking would work for me. It would definitely be a distraction. I wouldn’t mind going to a collaborative setting to bounce ideas off people and maybe work on group projects. But to try to do my day to day creative work in that setting would drive me mad. I realize I may be the exception rather than the rule on the creative side. I do think coworking is a great trend that works for a lot of people.
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