2010 Location Search

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Motivation

Gangplank will be moving locations within the next few months. This move will mean a lot more space for gangplank, yet further fluidity to that space. What this means for HSL will be the same or less permanent space for our tools and resources. Our goal has of course been to acquire tools available and ready to use 24/7. It is the current boards attitude that any move should be an upward move, not a sideways or backwards. This, along with the amazing growth in our membership and some interesting opportunities, has led to a search for a home for HSL.

Capability

The 5013 documentation financials were great for the board to be able to estimate our feasibility over the next few years. The end result of those preparations were an attitude that at a $50 membership at space of around $1500 a month (a conservative price including utils+insurance for the PHX region) would be impossible with less than 25 paying members. In addition coming in under that price might allow leasing/taking out loans for more expensive tools to increase further membership growth. We have so far been unsuccessful in securing grants. This has led to looking into partnerships to bring that initial cost down for the first year or two until tools are available and membership is then secure.

House behind Gangplank

• 900sq ft
• $1250 a month currently, talk him down to say 600-800, would have to renovate in our spare time
• even more chandler so not as central tempe/phoenix as many have preferred 242 S. Wall Street Chandler AZ
• all by ourselves, no sub lease
• communal facilities literally 20ft from gangplank
• traditional busted hackerspace feel
• Trust and like Derek

Innovations Chandler

File:Location-Innovations1.jpg

• 1000sq feet
• ~1500
• Less chandler, but still quite chandler 145 S 79th street Chandler Az
• some communal facilities, enough to hold our meetings there?
• free insurance(~$2-4k in value)
• free access to advanced tools such as laser cutter(which will bring in members)(from David's space there)
• Sterile and very entrepreneurial and business-y vs a typical artists/hacker model
• temporary (1-3 years)

D.A. Thierren's thing

1. $790 - 970 SF, the large west end room, mini split AC, small side window, 36" front door, large double back door, private bathroom 2. $450 - 485 SF, the small room, AC or evap, no bathroom, sink optional, large storefront window, double rear door. 1 + 2. $1100 - 1455 SF, private bathroom, AC, as above. 3. $525-$590 - 625 SF, large front entrance, double door rear entrance, evap or AC, $525, if you share the bathroom with the building, $590 if you don't.

• CAM for First Friday, shared electricity, etc
• move in cost is 1st and last month, plus a utility/clean-up/late deposit.
• May for free while you paint, wire, build or whatever. building is as-is, no leaks, and we will make improvements as we go. We'll get cooling in ASAP. New rear double doors will be later, as rent comes in.
• 1M in insurance necessary
• Downtown PHX arts district area 718 N. 4th St
• communal facilities-outside area for performance and chilling - inside area for workshops and classrooms
• artists-much more the artist style hackerspace
• some reports that David is a strong personality
• frankly we're in some ways in competition with DA. We're our own incubator with our own model - either competition or cooperation with the other artists in there

PHX Arts district location

• sq footage?
• "far lower than 2k a month"
• Downtown PHX arts district
• artists-more the artist style hackerspace

Ethos

Start Small

A lot of the hackerspace how to's caution to start small and I personally subscribe to that idea. If we could just use someones garage and start compiling tools people could visualize what their member fees get them. 24/7 is also rather ambitious to start with. Many of the existing popular hacker spaces aren't 24/7 and they're proven and up and running. An interesting concept I saw was a doorman twitter account which people could follow at any point in the day to see if a keyholder was present and therefore the doors were open.

Go Big

The infrastructure pattern

• Things I would like to see in a leased space include public transport, ventilation, garage space, kitchen/cafe space, lounge space.

• I know others have expressed a 'safe location' as something that is important, but here too some of the hackerspace how-to's recommend explicitly looking for sketchy and therefor cheap neighborhoods. We also want the space to be friendly to all night traffic and all night machine noise.

Ideas

• When submitting our ASU EAP 2k proposal, the director of that program mentioned looking into finding municipalities in the area who currently may have more real estate than they know what to do with and maybe interest in hosting this type of 'incubator' concept. He also mentioned contacting Lodestar, an ASU lead community nonprofit resource, for assistance. I have since contacted them and ended up speaking with Robert Duea who encouraged us to seek out city planners and city managers. He seemed interested in our concept and went so far as to mention that his community of Surprise was indeed looking at courting tech startups and that we may fall into that.--so far no contact returned from cities/munis

Help us!

Picking a long-term home can be difficult. On the one hand, there is the set of current members who are attending meetings. On the other hand there are all those other people who you would love to have come attend meetings, but who may be hindered by the current location.

Surveying current attendees includes a selection bias: Many people currently attending may want to keep the current location because it's convenient. Meanwhile there may be a good number of people who do not currently attend, but would if the location were different.

Decide what the long-term goal should be and try to get a location that fits that. The downside is that, short-term, this may end up being a poor location for people currently attending. The upside is that the group is better positioned for its long-term goals.

• Please fill out this Survey to help us determine the best location

• If you think you know a good location please fill out this survey