Jenifer Ross”™s W@tercooler has all the lofty charm of SoHo without the downtown Manhattan prices.
It”™s a shared office with a condo feel.
You can hear the commotion of cars and pedestrians and the faint ring of a downtown Tarrytown church bell. Natural light bounces off the hardwood floors. There are paintings and miscellaneous treasures picked up at tag sales.
The space opens June 1 and will house up to 25 business professionals sharing a common roof.
“Coworking establishments are not just about getting your work done and working independently, but together,” Ross said. “I want to promote that interaction between members. It can get so lonely and isolating if you”™re a freelancer or a remote worker. You can have a windshield survey in two minutes here just by walking around the room and get feedback instantly.”
It seems Ross is not alone in her thinking with the crop of shared offices popping up throughout the tristate region.
Beahive, a collaborative workspace and sustainable office community, operates Beacon and Kingston offices; Poughkeepsie is next on its list.
The Alliance for Downtown New York, lower Manhattan”™s business improvement district, opened in 2009 Hive at 55 (on Broad Street), an affordable shared workspace for freelancers and start-ups.
In Yonkers, Y-Enterprise Business Center at i-Park on Hudson, will provide affordable office space for small business start-ups ”“ about $500 to $2,500 ”“ dependent upon needed space.
But Ross indicated it”™s more than about saving money for so-called “solopreneurs.”
“I can act as the catalyst for somebody who has a dream and wants to take it further, but doesn”™t have the means to rent an office,” she said. Â “I can be an incubator for new businesses and new ideas to grow. I can increase activity in a downtown by bringing 40 people daily to the area who are going to eat and shop downtown.”
Ross knows a thing or two about marketing Main Street, having run the Red Wing Gallery in Tarrytown for four years.
“As a downtown local merchant, I realized it”™s tough in a small town to get people to come to your establishment,” she said. “No matter how cute or quaint your town is, it was really not easy to get that critical mass of volume, so from the very beginning I had art shows every month.”
Beginning then and for five subsequent years, she unofficially led the Third Friday effort, an arts, culture and commerce event drawing patrons to downtown restaurants and shops.
In 2004, she became assistant village administrator, which ultimately led her to a director of development position at Warner Library on North Broadway and downtown coordinator for the revitalization effort in Sleepy Hollow.
In her new venture, area merchants can participate in the W@tercooler Advantage Program and gain leads by listing discounts for members.
“I love platforms,” Ross said. “I love ways to use your business as a vehicle and not just for yourself.
W@tercooler pricing and packages can be found at watercoolerhub.com.
I think this is a fantastic idea. i am involved with a startup myself, (OTL Dynamics) and just such a space as the W@tercooler would be a very attractive office solution for us. Unfortunately we are on the left coast. The very best of luck with this.
genius you are!!
looking forward to the launch. congratulations! good luck!