MEMBERSHIP PRICING
- Coworking Membership: $400.00/year
- Single Day Pass: $15.00 per person (9am-3pm)
- Company/Organization Membership: $1000/ year– for up to three individuals from the same company/organization-3 access cards will be issued.
People sick of working in a Starbucks or coffee shop can now rent office space in the Downtown Business Connector in downtown Muncie.
The Downtown Business Connector is an affiliate of the Innovation Connector in Muncie, and opened Monday on the floor level of The Lofts of Roberts.
However, rather than being the business incubator where businesses are helped to grow, like the Innovation Connector is, Downtown Business Connector is just a place where people can come to work.
“The Downtown Business Connector is kind of like a halfway spot between someone’s home office or a Starbucks or coffee shop,” said Ted Baker, executive director of Innovation Connector. “It’s more of a collective group of people working together.”
The Downtown Business Connector provides Wi-Fi, copy services, meeting and conference rooms and a café.
When downtown Muncie started to do well, Baker decided to have the Innovation Connector collaborate with the city to make the Downtown Business Connector.
He said companies are starting to send people out to work instead of working at their office.
“Larger companies are buying memberships to these places for workers to meet off campus to meet,” Baker said.
There are also people who are one-person companies who would find the business connector useful. Entrepreneurs, independent professionals, freelancers and start-up businesses are able to work together in these spaces, according to innovationconnector.com.
Baker said they sell memberships for spaces, and members probably won’t come in to work in their office every day.
“This won’t be their only office,” Baker said. “They’ll be in and out. There will be some lawyers who want a place to go and hang out with their laptops and work off site. We’re seeing that more and more.”
While the Downtown Business Connector is designated for everyone, Baker said it leads more toward millennials.
Trisha Gierhart, the program director of the Shafer Leadership Academy, has been working at the Innovation Connector for a year. Before she came, their office was just a storage space that never had anyone stay there during working hours.
“Being in a building with different people representing different organizations and the networking opportunity has been great,” Gierhart said.
Everyone in the building uses a resource center — a common place to use the copier and fax machine — as well as having a common café and kitchen area.
“Ted Baker and his staff work really well to keep us all connected,” Gierhart said. “They do newsletters and they’re genuine in their connections with us. It opens up the door for us to have conversations with each other rather than just pass each other in the hallway.”
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