Monique Priestley, who runs the Space on Main coworking space in Bradford, got a lot of calls this spring from people who had recently moved to a home office and were looking for more peaceful surroundings.
“For the most part, they were able to do their jobs, but their kids were home and their spouses were home and there was increased noise,” said Priestley, who with other coworking space managers closed in March under state orders to prevent the spread of Covid-19. She reopened Space on Main on June 8 with occupancy restrictions and new safety guidelines.
“I kind of wish we had been seen as an essential business,” said Priestley, noting that in other states, coworking spaces were allowed to stay open. She added that internet access wasn’t as big a problem for people in rural areas as some had expected.
“Internet was OK for the most part, not superb, but they were able to manage.” Space on Main opened a free internet channel so people could park outside, and many people parked at schools and libraries to use their WiFi.
A few coworking spaces in Vermont started opening Monday, including Space on Main and the large Vermont Center for Emerging Technologies in Burlington. Do North in Lyndonville opened June 10 at 25% capacity, so only about 12 members can use the space at a time, said director Evan Carlson. He said some members aren’t ready to come back, in some cases because they don’t have child care lined up.
But “one of our members who has been working from the parking lot was super eager to come back,” he said.
The Lightning Jar in Bennington hasn’t reopened yet, and there’s no date set for that to happen. Co-founder Dimitri Garder said the group continues to provide remote coaching and mentoring services.
“I’d be a little hesitant to open a coworking space right now,” he said. “I just don’t think we’re comfortable with that.”
Vermont’s coworking spaces were growing in number and just starting to get organized when the pandemic closed down business activity around the state and nation this winter. Active organizers like Priestley estimated there were about 30 of them, most of them small startups, in November. It’s not clear how many will reopen this summer as guidelines allow. Many were surviving and finding members through events and other programming, activities that will now be limited. That is likely to hurt fundraising and other support.
“For all of us, the in-person programming is at the heart of everything,” said Priestley. “A lot of us have been trying to think of new programming we can offer online and to branch out.”
But they could also get a boost from what is expected to be a large move toward remote working. Priestley said Dartmouth College has reached out to find out what kind of amenities could be offered for its workers who don’t expect to return to the office. Other large employers have workers in the Bradford area. Some of the coworking space directors are talking about creating a corporate membership program that employers could buy for workers who might use different co-working spaces.
The Black River Innovation Campus, which opened last fall before closing because of the coronavirus, is expected to reopen in mid-June with a new tenant: Voi, a Hanover, New Hampshire-based company that is moving into BRIC with two employees. Voi chose BRIC partly because of the hiring possibilities in the Springfield area, said CEO Bill Hudenko. The company just received a contract from the U.S. Air Force.
“It’s a very exciting time of growth for us,” said Hudenko, who also teaches in the psychiatry department at Dartmouth’s medical school. He said the Hartland-based Center on Rural Innovation, which recently made an equity investment in Voi, has drawn people to the area who have the skills he’s looking for. “While we have some tech movement in Hanover, it’s actually I think potentially even a better place for us to be located where we can have a lot of synergy from other folks who have connections and the technical background to advance what we are doing,” he said of Springfield.
Larger companies like King Arthur Flour in Norwich had addressed the area’s labor shortage before the crisis by using coworking spaces to attract far-flung employees, for example with a small group of Chittenden County-based employees who worked together at VCET. Now that so many people nationally have worked at home since March because of the crisis, Priestley sees a bright future for coworking spaces, which offer high-speed internet, a quiet space free from distractions, and meeting rooms.
“This has been a long time coming,” she said. “Working remotely is not a new thing. So many people were saying their employees wouldn’t be as productive at home, so they couldn’t possibly allow it. But they’re seeing there is more productivity outside the office.”
Get the latest statistics and live updates on our coronavirus page.
Sign up for our coronavirus email list.
Tell us your story or give feedback at coronavirus@vtdigger.org.
Support our nonprofit journalism with a donation.
