BRADFORD — Coworking and maker spaces are emerging in small towns all over Vermont. There are now at least 30 of them, enough that their backers are starting to get organized. A few are seeking to leverage state support to attract more members.
Evan Carlson, who operates the new Do North coworking space in Lyndonville, wants lawmakers to take another look at legislation that would provide incentives for Vermont employers who allow people to work remotely. Helping state workers who live in the Lyndon area, he said, would inject some life into the local economy.
“If you’re driving to Montpelier from Lyndon every day, you’re driving 90 miles a day, which is pretty crazy and taxing on the environment,” said Carlson. “In addition, we’re taking people out of our rural community every day if they’re driving to Montpelier. We would love to figure out how to keep people hyper-local.”
Coworking and maker spaces started appearing in Vermont around 2009, according to Nick Grimley, who keeps track of the state’s diverse and dynamic coworking community as part of his job at the state Department of Commerce and Community Development. By Grimley’s count, there are now 20 coworking spaces and seven maker spaces in the state. Do North is one of several that opened last year or this year. One opened in Waterbury a few months ago, and another is due to open Nov. 14 in Windsor.
The growth of the cooperative working spaces in Vermont is reflected in a similar trajectory worldwide. While the coworking company WeWork suffered a well-publicized financial crash this year, running alongside that story of a company that expanded too fast is a strong international movement toward creating work spaces that supplement or replace traditional offices.
Groups like the League of Extraordinary CoWorking Spaces link independent spaces around the world for the increasingly large number of people who do their business remotely and from several locations.
Coworking memberships generally offer access to quiet, safe spaces that offer WiFi and coffee. At many coworking spaces in larger cities, such as Vermont Center for Emerging Technologies (VCET) in Burlington, members have access to private meeting rooms, a large and well-appointed kitchen, and appealing décor. VCET gets a $100,000 appropriation from the state to support its space, mentoring and education programs, and other activities, along with grants and other funding.
But most of the coworking spaces in Vermont are low-budget affairs, often lodged in donated space and heavily supported by donations and volunteers.
The executive director of the new Space on Main in Bradford, which also opened last fall, doesn’t yet take a salary for her part in keeping the lights on and the coffee flowing.
Monique Priestley, a Bradford native who moved back from Seattle in 2011 to work remotely in her hometown, juggles membership duties with her full-time remote job and cleans the space on weekends with her boyfriend. Priestley, who has started or participated in about 20 community groups in the Bradford region, just wants to help downtown Bradford rebound from a couple of major business closures in recent years.
“I was always into local town stuff,” she said. “My mom always had us volunteering and having us be the helpers.”
Sustained by memberships
The Space on Main charges $35 a day and $100 a month for 9-5 access to the space from Monday through Friday. For $150 a month, members can come in 24 hours a day. And another $100 a month gets them a designated desk where they can leave their computer monitors and other belongings. Priestley has two people signed up for the latter category right now: one is a CPA and attorney, and the other is an aerospace engineer.
Twenty people have monthly general memberships to the Space on Main. Summer visitors briefly boosted monthly memberships to 35. Priestley’s working hard to get up to 50 year-round monthly members within three years. The League of Extraordinary CoWorking Spaces only accepts coworking spaces with a year in business and more than 25 members, both measures of sustainability.
On applications, Priestley asks people why they want to use the coworking space; she said few mention the need for broadband. Many say they want to be around other people.
“Nearly everyone who has applied is working on some kind of side hustle or wants to start a company and wants to start building a network of peers,” she said.
Do North, too, saw its membership peak last summer, with 28 memberships in July. Now it’s down to 24. With sponsorship from local banks, Carlson is paid to work at the space four days a week, and does consulting on the side.
Strength in numbers
Priestley this fall started bringing together coworking space leaders from around the state so they can learn from each other. Their next meeting is in December at VCET.
Carlson and Priestley have started talking to lawmakers about the provisions in the original S.94, which set out a few ways to encourage state employers and workers to use coworking spaces. The incentives were originally part of a 2017 bill that ultimately authorized Vermont’s remote worker program, which reimburses people’s moving costs if they move to the state to work for a company elsewhere.
That bill originally called for lawmakers to create a tax credit for employers that allowed telecommuting. That provision was dropped along the way, but one of the original sponsors of S.94, Sen. Becca Balint, D-Windham, said she’s still interested in the notion of promoting the use of co-working spaces.
At the time the bill was drafted in 2017, “we were both feeling very fired up about this connection between the amount of emissions output that is driving up our carbon footprint in Vermont,” said Balint, referring to co-sponsor Ginny Lyons, D-Chittenden. Balint noted that 43% of the state’s carbon emissions are related to transportation.
The office of Sen. President Pro Tem Tim Ashe, D/P Chittenden, surveyed some of the coworking space leaders this summer. He said they seem to need help with marketing, some financial support in the first years, and functional broadband.
“I’m not sure what this will lead to, but I think we ought to step up and find ways to support our rural communities with these spaces,” Ashe said.
Encouraging remote work might also help people with child care, a need that Balint said keeps some Vermonters from joining the workforce.
Lyons, too, said she’s interested in the idea of encouraging state workers to use the spaces, but she noted that in 2017, the Scott administration wasn’t keen on the idea.
“I know that state employees and remote working was not received well by the administration, and it’s the same administration,” Lyons said. “There may be some really critical reasons why people are unwilling to look at it. Maybe there is a significant administrative burden.”
But she added that she likes the idea of cutting back on emissions by reducing commutes.
“I am certainly open to hearing what people have to say and perhaps generating a new conversation,” Lyons said.
Next steps
Space on Main, set in Bradford’s former Hill’s 5 & 10 department store, was a busy place on a recent weekday. People using laptops occupied three restaurant-like booths, and a group of five seniors were doing a puzzle and knitting together. Other tables were occupied by computer users, too. Space on Main has an event space that fits 50 and a conference room that’s often rented by local groups.
But some coworking spaces just haven’t been able to draw members.
“They don’t all work out,” Grimley said. “Probably the biggest thing people overestimate is demand.”
Priestley said marketing is her biggest struggle. Like Carlson, she hopes to get the Legislature interested next year.
“Even being on Main Street, people don’t realize all the time what it is,” she said. “They think it’s a WiFi café.”
Programming is critical, said Grimley.
“It’s not enough anymore just to have physical space, internet and free coffee,” he said.
Company outposts
The users aren’t just solo entrepreneurs or people who have jobs in other states; Vermont companies use the remote worker spaces too for far-flung employees. King Arthur Flour in Norwich pays for four spaces at VCET, said Caitlin Lovegrove, who occupies one of those spaces two or three days a week instead of traveling to Norwich.
Lovegrove, who does new product development for the baking company, said she’s tested prototypes on her VCET office-mates several times.
“Being around other people from different companies and different entrepreneurial endeavors is helpful to me,” she said.
Carlson said two people from Green Mountain United Way work regularly at Do North. Carlson is working on an initiative to develop a communications union district for the southern Northeast Kingdom, and he knows it will be a while before that region’s more remote residents are connected.
“We certainly know people aren’t going to be getting high-speed internet in our area this summer,” he said. “That sustains our business model for the foreseeable future.”
“I’m actually really excited that there are people in Vermont who still want to keep this idea alive, because I think it deserves a second look,” said Balint. “We need to give people options to reduce emissions and this is one way to do it.”
