| [[]] | |
| Founded | 2009 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Bill Jacobson, David Ulrich |
| Headquarters | Boston & Cambridge , United States |
Area served | Boston & Cambridge, Mass. |
| Services | Coworking, meeting space, events, and education |
Number of employees | 6 |
| Website | www.workbar.com |
Workbar is a coworking space with locations in the heart of the Financial District, Boston and Central Square (Cambridge). Using a membership-based model, Workbar caters to the needs of freelancers, growing startups, remote teams, and small businesses in need of flexible, month-to-month shared workspace. Workbar provides a full service office with 24-hour access to open work areas, conference and phone rooms, as well as unlimited fair-trade, organic coffee and snacks, beer on tap, wifi, printing, faxing, scanning, and mail service. The space also hosts public and private events regularly, and provides networking opportunities, programming, and various discounts and perks for its members.[1]
History
Co-founders and entrepreneurs Bill Jacobson and David Ulrich were subleasing from a tenant, Dream Realization Media, at 129 South Street, Boston, when Dream Realization Media went out of business and left them with a lot of extra office space. Though the two entrepreneurs could not afford to rent the whole space, they decided to see if a shared office model might work to cover their costs. They pitched the Winhall Companies, their then-landlords, about making the empty office into a coworking space to offset their rent costs. Brothers Richard and Kenneth Epstein, the Winhall’s owners, liked the idea and partnered with David and Bill a few months later, in the early summer of 2009, to launch Workbar.[2]
As it grew in popularity, Workbar moved to it’s current Boston location on 711 Atlantic Avenue.
Members
Since opening, Workbar has had over 400 members from many different industries pass through its doors. [3] Primarily, Workbar’s members are evenly distributed between startups, independent workers & freelancers, small businesses, and remote employees of established enterprises. Some industries represented include: mobile app development, law, digital media marketing, business consulting, IT, financial investing, and renewable energy.[4]
Notable Members
Some notable companies that have worked out of Workbar are:[5]
Locations
Workbar has two coworking centers – one at 711 Atlantic Avenue, directly across from the South Station bus terminal, and another, which opens in March 2013, on the corner of Prospect Street and Bishop Allen Drive in Central Square, Cambridge.[6]
LEXC Membership
Workbar is a founding member of the League of Extraordinary Coworking Spaces, or LEXC, along with NextSpace in San Francisco and Los Angeles, BLANKSPACES in Los Angeles, Link Coworking in Austin, and CoCo coworking and collaborative space in Minneapolis and St. Paul [7]
Services
Coworking
Workbar offers various membership options, which vary in price. These include day passes, Part Time, Full Time, dedicated desks, and private offices. [8]
Conference Room Rental
Workbar offers conference room rentals at both coworking centers, which are free to members and charged hourly to visitors. [9]
Events
Workbar hosts many social and professional events, including Lunch & Learns twice a month, hackathons, lectures, live-stream watch parties, new member mimosa mornings, and poker night. Non-members can also rent out certain spaces for events.[10]
OuterSpaces program
Born out of a partnership with Boston World Partnerships in August 2012[11], Workbar’s OuterSpaces program takes the concept of coworking and applies it to a network of existing, traditional office spaces in the Boston area. It works with hosts - businesses that have extra workspace or offices and uses a monthly membership model to fill their empty seats with “seekers: - small teams and independent workers looking for dedicated workspace. All members of OuterSpaces also receive the benefits of Workbar membership.[12]
Space Design
Workbar is designed to accommodate different work styles, and to combine the energy of a startup with the professionalism of a fully-functioning, managed workspace. [13]The Boston coworking center, which is 5,200 square feet, is in the basement of 711 Atlantic Avenue. The space has colorful walls - mostly shades of orange and green - a lot of exposed brick and pipes, and is mostly open workspace with five 2-person private offices. It is furnished with a variety of 1-2 person tables, high and low desks and tables, and a few areas with couches and 1-2 person lounge chairs. [14] Many of the meeting spaces and phone rooms are painted with Idea Paint to encourage creative brainstorming.[15] The Central Square coworking center, which is 12,000 square feet, is split between the first and fifth floors, has a café space on the first floor and a members-only coworking space on the fifth floor.
Expansions
After moving to 711 Atlantic Avenue, Workbar expanded its Boston location in 2011 to double its size, and it is in the process of expanding again from 5,200 square feet to over 8,000 square feet.
Workbar’s Cambridge expansion is expected to finish in the late spring of 2013.