NewHavenBIZ

22 n e w h a v e n B I Z | N o v e m b e r / D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 8 n e w h a v e n b i z . c o m shop at MakeHaven. A former Yale student who now lives in New York, Mejias says he's hoping to parlay his hobby and side job into a full-fledged business. He was spending $700 a month to rent shop space in New York City, but now pays only $50 a month for 24/7 access to MakeHaven's woodshop and its assortment of hand tools and power saws. "It allows me to work on projects without the stress of overhead," Mejias explains. "Now I can pick and choose my projects according- ly, without having to worry about making that monthly rent." MakeHaven cofounder J.R. Logan says the space is perfect for inventors working on prototypes, artists looking to try new media, or hobbyists-turned-small business owners who've outgrown their basements and garages but aren't yet big enough for their own shops. "e idea is that we would incubate that business to the point where they would have the scale to do their own thing," he says. Launched in 2012, the nonprofit moved earlier this year from State Street to its new digs in the base- ment of 770 Chapel Street. Besides the woodshop, there are stations for cooking, beer brewing, sewing, electronics, printmaking, radio communications and more. Members can rent desks for an extra $200 a month, and Logan plans eventually to add studios to the coworking mix. Mejias says he enjoys being around fellow creators and their myriad projects. "People do a lot of crazy things in here. It's like mad scientists," Mejias jokes. "Sometimes I don't know what they're doing — but it looks really cool." Here To Stay With 40 percent of the workforce projected to be self-employed by 2020, advocates say coworking is likely here to stay. "Fundamentally, there's a demand because people are more mobile," says MakeHaven's Logan. "A lot of the folks that are here are working remotely, and they're in New Haven because a partner came in for a job. ey want a social community — otherwise they'd be sitting home alone." Traditional professions such as legal and accounting firms are catching on, too, and some corpo- rations have moved entire remote teams into coworking offices, says Chatterton, the Coworking Insights author. Commercial real estate firms are also increasingly looking to co- working as a business opportunity. "We're seeing the ideology of flexible workspaces and shared resources really being adopted by many industries," he says. Coworking has also spread to the suburbs, popping up in places like Hamden, Wallingford, Guilford, Madison, Shelton and Middlebury in recent months. Even in a crowded marketplace, Chatterton says there will always be room for well-run spaces whose operators care about their product and communities. "ere's an oversaturation of pizza shops in New York, but the best ones are still standing and are always going to stay standing," he says. n COWORKING The former CT Transit bus site on James Street is the new home of District, the Elm City's newest and largest coworking hub. Continued from previous page

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