[Finance] Pursuing funding for a combined coliving + makerspace property

[Jeff Cotten]

Holy crap.  It's been so long since I've seen anything but spam on this
list I almost didn't see this :)

I don't have any insight into lenders, grant programs, etc, but I bet this
contact would:
https://www.nationofmakers.us/

Just a heads up, they will want you to join that organization, but if you
meet with her over video chat she'll explain that there is a
pay-what-you-can system available.
I did this with her once and I came away with the impression that she had a
lot of contacts in the makerspace arena, and probably knows who
the potential investors are.
I believe she said that NationOfMakers came out of an Obama administration
initiative to prop up STEM education.

I'm excited for your initiative.  It makes me want to sell my house and
move to Portland.



On Wed, Oct 7, 2020 at 1:33 PM Sparr <sparr0 at gmail.com> wrote:

> First, hello! This is my first post to this list, although I was active on
> the discuss list years ago when I was more active in traditional makerspace
> organization.
>
> I am pursuing a dream of a large coliving / cohousing community with an
> integrated makerspace and other shared functional amenities. I've set my
> sights on an old boarding high school (more recently a corporate retreat
> and a spiritual retreat) outside Portland, OR. The property has 130 dorm
> rooms, 30 bedrooms in apartments and houses, and 130k sqft of additional
> functional indoor space. Notably that includes a 14k sqft industrial arts
> building equipped as an auto shop, wood shop, and welding shop. The tools
> are gone, but the infrastructure (lifts, dust collection, welding booths,
> ventilation, power distribution, oxygen and acetylene plumbing, etc) is
> still in place and functional. That building also has classrooms that we
> would convert into a machine shop and a high tech fabrication shop (3d
> printing, circuit etching and milling, etc), and the other buildings have
> spaces for fiber arts, kiln crafts, etc.
>
> So far my financial prospects have included investment from the founders,
> a crowd investing campaign, and some committed funds from members joining
> when we launch. I've also been pursuing angel investment and bank financing
> both as a small business and as a commercial real estate purchase.
>
> That brings me to this list. I'd like to ask for guidance on pursuing
> financing at least part of the project from the makerspace/hackerspace
> angle. I would appreciate recommendations of lenders, grant programs, etc
> that might be applicable. Perhaps as part of the purchase price of the
> property, perhaps for buildout and tool acquisition, perhaps for some other
> aspect of the project. I expect some of you might even have angles in mind
> that I haven't even thought of yet.
>
> If you'd like to know more about the project, and I put this at the end
> because this email is primarily in search of information and not meant as a
> pitch, you can find our various web presences here:
> Website: http://CoDwell.org
> Crowd investing campaign: http://wefunder.com/codwell
> Facebook page: http://facebook.com/CoDwellCommunity
>
> Thank you,
> Clarence "Sparr" Risher
> CoDwell
> sparr0 at gmail.com
> sparr at codwell.org
>
> PS: I hope I haven't caught too many of you by surprise, resurrecting this
> old list. I wonder if there's an equivalent of "thread necromancy" for a
> whole mailing list?
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>
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