L.A. is probably the most "evolved" suburban city, and we still have sprawl. I think the trick for you is to get a space with a size that'll be appropriate for your market. Santa Cruz opened up a 10,000sf place, which without knowing that city, seems awfully huge. Other coworking spaces are maybe 1000sf. It's really a gamble - I mean, experiment - so don't try pick one location that'll appease everyone in the city. Even in NYC, that'd be a daunting proposition. And much like we're all creating coworking spaces in our respective cities, then NOW finally allying, you can do the same on a local level. Set up your location first, then ally with others.
Jerome ______________ BLANKSPACES "work wide open" www.blankspaces.com 5405 Wilshire Blvd (2 blocks west of La Brea) Los Angeles, CA 90036 323.330.9505 (office) On Oct 2, 2008, at 11:54 AM, Mike Schinkel wrote: > > > Hi all: > > In doing our planning for an Atlanta Coworking space we are finding > that the > Atlanta geography doesn't lend itself to one central location where > everyone > is wiling to be. That is probably true anywhere, but in Atlanta with > poorly > planned public transit and no natural boundary (i.e. no mountains, big > rivers, or oceans) it is especially bad because we are spread out > all over > the place. > > Fortunately there is somewhat of a concensus on Midtown (which > doesn't both > me because I live in Midtown :-) but there are factions vying for > other > locations. We briefly entertained the idea of multiple concurrent > spaces but > it will be hard enough to launch one space let alone two or three. > > However yesterday I met with a former entrepreneurs and current > mayor of a > town east of Decatur called Avondale Estates and he has a ~2000 sqft > house > that he bought to turn into an incubator and is now considering > making it a > coworking space. The problem is that from our list of people who are > interested almost nobody would travel to Avondale Estates although > I'm sure > there could be people in Decatur I don't know cultivated to use it. > > During our discussions the idea of federating came up, i.e. making it > possible for "members" of either facility to be able to go to the > other > facility kind of how like members of the YMCA when they were > independent > could go to any YMCA. > > So how are those of you in cities with a large number of people > handling > this? Have you thought of any kind of federation within a city? > > -Mike Schinkel > President; NewClarity LLC > Organizer: Atlanta Web Entrepreneurs > http://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeschinkel > http://mikeschinkel.com > http://atlanta-web.org > > P.S. And while I'm on the subject, have any of you thought about > federation > across cities, i.e. to allow members from one city to use space in > other > cities? > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/coworking?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
