Hi Andy! Between Creative Blueprint and Foundery we had 3 locations within walking distance of eachother here in Toronto. Each location is very different. One is used for raw, messy work (arts based maker space) and has a strong creative community of artists and designers. Another is a more traditional coworking office environment but with the added value of an event space and art gallery, for our diverse community of freelancers, startups and entrepreneurs. The 3rd location became a hybrid of the two models, a mix of creative workspace and more traditional coworking facilities. Some of our members stick to one location where they feel they have a tribe. Others move between the locations, using different facilities for different projects or stages in their development (client meetings etc). This set up worked well for a long time, and still works for us.
But I've been looking for ways to make improvements, and I noticed our members would all come together for events and I came to realize, they all REALLY like eachother, and like being around eachother even though they may be working on completely different things. After a few years, I also started feeling overwhelmed with managing 3 of everything. 3 community managers, 3 hydro bills, etc. etc. There just seemed like a lot of waste. It sorta hit me while I was buying our 3rd vacuum cleaner... We had an opportunity to move in early 2014 and so we began combining our communities into one space. I liked the happy little accidents so much that we are now also going to move all of our members from the Queen West location into The Foundery Buildings for July 1st. So we are now going from 3 independent locations into one building as we expand. I'm really excited about reconnecting these communities. I must mention that the layout of our building helps. We have 3 floors, each 5000 sq ft. It makes it easier to keep the event space separate from our designated desks, and although we are working with an open concept, we can have artist studios and coworking space next to eachother, but not interfering with eachother. Some spaces just can't accommodate that. Our community remained strong between 3 locations because of the walking distance between them. We are all neighbours in the community as well. We also have the benefit of a central event space that connects us all, and we share community lunches. There were benefits of maintaining independent locations (like having 'something for everyone', and being able to try out something new on a smaller group), but also pitfalls (I like to be hands-on in the community and was wearing thin juggling 3 independent communities). You know your members best Andy - if there is something for them at each location and they are willing to travel for it, or if you already have enough members to fill 2 locations, you can support more than one space. Ashley Proctor Creative Blueprint & Foundery Toronto, Canada On May 13, 2014, at 11:32 AM, Andy Soell wrote: > So, an amazing opportunity has fallen into our laps that would allow us to > open a second coworking location a couple miles away from our existing > location. We make a pretty heavy emphasis on community here, so I've never > been super keen on the idea of multiple locations (versus expanding to larger > spaces as needed) but for a variety of reasons this new space makes a lot of > sense. We're contemplating it, but I wanted to check with any other space > operators to find out any advice / tips / pitfalls related to multiple > spaces, specifically as it relates to making sure the community doesn't > become fragmented. > > -- > 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 coworking+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > 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 coworking+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
