[hackerspaces] Rent?

Gui Cavalcanti gui at artisansasylum.com
Thu Feb 14 18:26:55 CET 2013


Artisan's Asylum here, for a funny aside and a sense of scale. We pay on the order of $25,000 a month in rent and $6,000 a month in electricity for 40,000 square feet. We're currently getting a discount on our rent, so that number is eventually going to go up slightly. We're in an extremely well maintained warehouse that's less than a mile from MIT and Harvard, in Somerville, Massachusetts. 

The idea that someone could get a 5,000 square foot warehouse for less than $1,000 a month makes me want to cry a little. 

- - -
Gui Cavalcanti, President
Artisan's Asylum, Inc.
http://www.artisansasylum.com
Cell: (857) 389-7669

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Subject: Discuss Digest, Vol 54, Issue 24
Date: Thu, Feb 14, 2013 12:14 pm


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Today's Topics:

   1. Re: Rent? (Jens)
   2. Re: Rent? (Jens)
   3. Re: Rent? (dosman)
   4. Re: Rent? (Yves Quemener)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2013 10:38:06 -0600
From: Jens <a.madman at gmail.com>
To: Hackerspaces General Discussion List
	<discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org>
Subject: Re: [hackerspaces] Rent?
Message-ID:
	<CAH8PvHrGZpFpZ-Yj4mb8v+rnkXFzuep0yWdXfnm2DLjvqCeyig at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

We are starting the same way you did, dosman, now on our 2nd month of a 6
month lease at an artist's space.  We pay $250 per month for exclusive use
of around 400 square feet in a 1200 square foot room.  We can use the rest
of the room for meetings and workshops, up to 20 hours per month.  Our
utilities are included.  We do not have "paid" memebership yet and monthly
costs are covered by 5 board members who donate $50 each month.

We hope at the end of 6 months to have enough people willing to pay for a
membership to be able to move to our own space.  Perhaps it will take a
year, though, as it did for dosman's space.


On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 10:20 AM, dosman <dosman at packetsniffers.org> wrote:

> Once we started growing and had close to enough people who said they'd be
> willing to pay dues we sublet a room out of an artists space for $400 a
> month and no utility costs (120 square feet with access to the rest of the
> building during our weekly public meetings). After that year we had enough
> people we rented a 1000 square foot commercial space. Our rent is like $584
> a month, I think our total monthly expenses are around $700 including rent.
> Our public liability insurance is $300 a year. Our membership dues of $40 a
> month from around 20 members usually covers the monthly expenses, a couple
> of us put in additional cash for utility deposits. Our periodic workshops
> provide a cushion for when memberships drop a little.
>
> We discussed allowing trades of services for memberships, but we decided
> against this. We have plenty of people who are not members who are regulars
> at our public meetings which we're totally cool with. But if someone wants
> full 24x7 access we feel it's reasonable for them to pay the same rate as
> the rest of us do to keep the lights on. We also support a reduced
> rate/starving hacker membership, but so far we don't have anyone who uses
> this. Occasionally we'll get folks who act like $40 a month is too much,
> but that's why we're open to the public one night a week (and other days
> when the space is occupied). Don't want to pay? That's cool, just hang out
> with us on Wednesdays.
>
> -dosman
>
> On Feb 14, 2013, at 12:55 AM, Derek Hubbard wrote:
>
> > That actually brings up a good question. What are people paying per
> month for rent or expenses? Here at CSpace in Oklahoma City, we're paying
> $450/mo for 5000sqft of warehouse space with a small kitchen and two
> bathrooms. The space is, for now, rather raw. We plan on improving that.
> Our other expenses bring costs up to an estimated $700/mo.
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 9:49 PM, B F <bakmthiscl at gmail.com> wrote:
> > You don't say how much you need to cover the rent.
> >
> > On Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 4:36 PM, asbesto <asbesto at freaknet.org> wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > We have 1 (one) euro in our bank account right now. We dunno how
> > > we're going to pay the next month :)
> > >
> > > so, NOTHING works here in the center of Sicilia, the deep south
> > > of our poor Italy...
> > >
> > >
> > > (p.s. someone wanna help us?)
> > >
> > > http://museo.freaknet.org/en/donazioni/
> > >
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Discuss mailing list
> > Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
> > http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Discuss mailing list
> > Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
> > http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
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Message: 2
Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2013 10:38:44 -0600
From: Jens <a.madman at gmail.com>
To: Hackerspaces General Discussion List
	<discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org>
Subject: Re: [hackerspaces] Rent?
Message-ID:
	<CAH8PvHr0iznLxe7VTEBvv-Za2wJ7hv4Q+uKBg5cYrDeXRNkGbA at mail.gmail.com>
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That is in Kansas... makeict.org


On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 10:38 AM, Jens <a.madman at gmail.com> wrote:

> We are starting the same way you did, dosman, now on our 2nd month of a 6
> month lease at an artist's space.  We pay $250 per month for exclusive use
> of around 400 square feet in a 1200 square foot room.  We can use the rest
> of the room for meetings and workshops, up to 20 hours per month.  Our
> utilities are included.  We do not have "paid" memebership yet and monthly
> costs are covered by 5 board members who donate $50 each month.
>
> We hope at the end of 6 months to have enough people willing to pay for a
> membership to be able to move to our own space.  Perhaps it will take a
> year, though, as it did for dosman's space.
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 10:20 AM, dosman <dosman at packetsniffers.org>wrote:
>
>> Once we started growing and had close to enough people who said they'd be
>> willing to pay dues we sublet a room out of an artists space for $400 a
>> month and no utility costs (120 square feet with access to the rest of the
>> building during our weekly public meetings). After that year we had enough
>> people we rented a 1000 square foot commercial space. Our rent is like $584
>> a month, I think our total monthly expenses are around $700 including rent.
>> Our public liability insurance is $300 a year. Our membership dues of $40 a
>> month from around 20 members usually covers the monthly expenses, a couple
>> of us put in additional cash for utility deposits. Our periodic workshops
>> provide a cushion for when memberships drop a little.
>>
>> We discussed allowing trades of services for memberships, but we decided
>> against this. We have plenty of people who are not members who are regulars
>> at our public meetings which we're totally cool with. But if someone wants
>> full 24x7 access we feel it's reasonable for them to pay the same rate as
>> the rest of us do to keep the lights on. We also support a reduced
>> rate/starving hacker membership, but so far we don't have anyone who uses
>> this. Occasionally we'll get folks who act like $40 a month is too much,
>> but that's why we're open to the public one night a week (and other days
>> when the space is occupied). Don't want to pay? That's cool, just hang out
>> with us on Wednesdays.
>>
>> -dosman
>>
>> On Feb 14, 2013, at 12:55 AM, Derek Hubbard wrote:
>>
>> > That actually brings up a good question. What are people paying per
>> month for rent or expenses? Here at CSpace in Oklahoma City, we're paying
>> $450/mo for 5000sqft of warehouse space with a small kitchen and two
>> bathrooms. The space is, for now, rather raw. We plan on improving that.
>> Our other expenses bring costs up to an estimated $700/mo.
>> >
>> >
>> > On Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 9:49 PM, B F <bakmthiscl at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > You don't say how much you need to cover the rent.
>> >
>> > On Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 4:36 PM, asbesto <asbesto at freaknet.org> wrote:
>> >
>> > >
>> > > We have 1 (one) euro in our bank account right now. We dunno how
>> > > we're going to pay the next month :)
>> > >
>> > > so, NOTHING works here in the center of Sicilia, the deep south
>> > > of our poor Italy...
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > (p.s. someone wanna help us?)
>> > >
>> > > http://museo.freaknet.org/en/donazioni/
>> > >
>> > >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Discuss mailing list
>> > Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
>> > http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Discuss mailing list
>> > Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
>> > http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Discuss mailing list
>> Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
>> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>>
>
>
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Message: 3
Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2013 11:57:25 -0500
From: dosman <dosman at packetsniffers.org>
To: Hackerspaces General Discussion List
	<discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org>
Subject: Re: [hackerspaces] Rent?
Message-ID: <8C2DE57C-B668-499A-B359-048B924E4179 at packetsniffers.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Some additional things. When we sublet that single room, that location was in a perfect location right down town with easy bus, bicycle, and walking access for a lot of people. I think that greatly helped us grow in the beginning. However we immediately started searching for another space when it became obvious we were growing beyond that location. We could have taken over the whole building after the first year (actually a house rezoned for commercial use) as the art space was vacating at the end of their lease, but we couldn't afford $1200 a month for rent.

We spent around 6 months searching and actually enlisted a real-estate agent one of our members knew and finally found our current location which had enough space and was cheap enough. It was a leap though as the expenses were more than our regular dues income, but a few of us agreed to just make up the difference until memberships covered it. We never had to put in extra money though. However, it's well outside of the city downtown area and no longer accessible by bus or bicycle for those members who relied on that access. Our treasurer negotiated with the landlord to get our move-in rent rate for 3 years as we renew our lease yearly so we know we won't have a rent hike for another year and a half if we stay here. One of the reasons we got our space so cheap (probably the cheapest commercial space in the city) is that we caught them in the middle of remodeling. We just said, stop putting money into the space, we'll finish some of the work, and they liked that idea. We love o
 ur current space (half way into our second year), but it's already getting crowded again on public nights. We are already looking for a place back in the downtown area.

One thing that has greatly helped us is our public outreach and working with other groups in town. There's a local children's science museum we do periodic "bug-bot" workshops with and other groups we've worked with. That has already opened the door to some possible assistance from the city on a larger location closer to our cities downtown area. That's a long way out yet but we're keeping our eyes on the horizon.

-dosman



------------------------------

Message: 4
Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2013 18:14:31 +0100
From: Yves Quemener <quemener.yves at free.fr>
To: discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
Subject: Re: [hackerspaces] Rent?
Message-ID: <511D1B77.3090503 at free.fr>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252

Are the /tmp/lab, the LOG and the LOL the only hackerspace who pay 0? in rent?

I thought these arrangement were far more frequent...


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