Co-working spaces are a growing trend and one southeast Wisconsin community is pushing for more.
A co-working space is where people work alongside each other in a shared room. Mychal Seger runs his company, Byte Noize Digital Marketing, out of a co-working space in Sheboygan.
"We can bring in clients, entertain clients here in this common work space," Seger said.
Seger rented space at Jake's Cafe Creative Community for about five months. Now he rents an office there.
Tryg Jacobson opened Jake's Cafe in 2010, well ahead of the trend.
"It was an interesting period in time because we are sort of coming off the hump of the recession at that time," Jacobson said. "There are lots and lots of people looking for work."
Jake's Cafe is three turn of the century homes and an old baptist church all connected. The 20,000 square foot space is full of communal work space, offices, a movie theater and other interesting rooms.
"To be able to work with other people, to be able to have your own space, yet have accessibility to people from a variety of walks of life and different occupations," Jacobson said.
Ward4 is a modern co-working space in Milwaukee. Community Manager Kristen Adams said membership has already grown by 40% this year.
"We have desks that are designed for you to be able to come in, grab a seat, work on your business, talk with other tenants," Adams said.
Members have 24-hour access to the building. They can reserve conference rooms and utilize an event space. People from all walks of life work here.
"A lot of entrepreneurs, start up businesses," Adams said.
Chad Wleczyk works for Abacus Architects, but still spends time networking at Ward4.
"The energy, the excitement, you never know who's going to be in the space," Wleczyk said.
In 2015, there were more than 5000,000 people using co-working spaces. In 2018, more than 2 million people took advantage of the concept, according to Global Co-working Unconference Conference.
The executive director of Sheboygan County's Economic Development Corporation Joe Sheehan said millennials are asking for more co-working spaces.
"One of the pieces that we're saying is we need shared space," Sheehan said. "We want to work with colleagues that we don't even know are colleagues from other companies."
Sheboygan County is working with dozens of businesses, schools and other groups to create more co-working spaces throughout the county.
You can rent space for the hour, by the day, the week, the month or the year. Learn more about Jake's Cafe by clicking here.
You can find more information about Ward4 by clicking here.
