Jen's numbers are pretty close - 100sf per person (that's counts for all common areas, too) is a decent rule of thumb. The 4-to-1 ratio only works on flex desks though, so that final count isn't quite right.
I generally recommend staying between 40-60% full time desks, and keeping the rest flex, to avoid territorialism and maximize the serendipity/collision potential that everyone raves about with coworking. So 5000 sq ft would could be 50 spots, and if you did an even split of full and flex (you'd have a estimated membership capacity of 25 + (25*4), or 125. For a 5000 square foot space, this is a much more realistic number before you start running into issues or ever needing to worry about overbooking. With all of that math said, two caveats: this calculation depends SO heavily on everything from the kinds of members in your community, the other work environments they have access to/use already, and even the seasons and weather. The OTHER thing, and this is the most important, is that knowing what I know now I would actively try to avoid tying membership capacity to square footage. Yes, the workspace has finite resources but the COMMUNITY can exist (and thrive) beyond the walls of the space. 60%+ of our members almost never use the space, but get value from membership through events and online community interactions. Honestly, we had this baked into our founding community and it kinda fell off a few years in, but once we started focusing on it again it's been the biggest aspect of our growth. People join before they need a desk to have a supportive community as they figure out their next professional move, and people keep memberships after job changes and physical relocations where they don't need a desk, but still have ways to belong and contribute. So get the numbers as a baseline, and make sure they add up. Then look for ways to grow membership that aren't tied to square footage. That's where the growth and resiliency is! -Alex On Apr 27, 2017, 9:30 AM -0400, Kevin Haggerty <[email protected]>, wrote: > Thank you, Jen. This was very helpful. :) > > -- > Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Coworking" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
