CoCoMSP, the premiere coworking space in the Twin Cities, announced yesterday that they will open a Minneapolis coworking space on July 5, 2011, on the historic Trading Floor of the Minneapolis Grain Exchange (see more photos here). This adventure is being done along with Project Skyway, Minnesota’s first tech accelerator program for motivated entrepreneurs.
Don Ball
I talked this morning with CoCoMSP’s Don Ball about this fabulous new facility which, I mentioned at the outset of our discussion, made my jaw drop when I first heard about this 16,000 square foot space.
“You won’t believe it until you see it,” Don said. “We’re actively doing construction now in order to be ready for our July opening.” He described in some detail the new space and what they’re doing with it. It sounds fantastic and I can’t wait to get a tour.
One thing that struck my eye as I read through the press release was this paragraph, “CoCo will also host educational and social events for the region’s creative, technical and business communities. Later in the year, CoCo will begin to offer hosted and facilitated meetings geared toward innovation breakthroughs.” With previous events held at the St. Paul facility (e.g., UnSummit and these events) that have been resoundingly successful, I’m really looking forward to the ones that will be possible in this new space.
Joining CoCoMSP and Project Skyway on this adventure are two innovative companies: CoCo Minneapolis is being designed by Target Commercial Interiors and will feature collaborative work and meeting settings from Steelcase.
The reason these two matter is what’s come out of previous conversations I’ve had with Don. Both Steelcase and Target Commercial Interiors are clearly pushing-the-envelope with coworking as they see the huge trend and obviously it will materially impact their respective businesses. For the City of Minneapolis it promises to bring a lot of new people to the downtown area, and arguably when a Project Skyway startup reaches critical mass, they might be so inclined to stay in the downtown area looking for bigger digs.
The bottom line? None of this matters if there wasn’t a groundswell of people working for themselves, in small startups or businesses, or working for a large company ,who are all eager to pay to have an office at a coworking facility. Working out of a coffee shop is fine for an hour or two but unless you buy that next muffin they’re unlikely to want you to camp out there all day. Working from home means you don’t network or collaborate with other humans and it gets pretty lonely. These are just a few of the drivers making coworking such a great alternative.
So this new facility not only finally makes the “M” in “CoCoMSP” meaningful, there sure seems to be a lot of obvious wins for everyone involved.