030926 ~ BrightWorks CoWorking Downtown Is Now Open - Kate Arbour

You are listening to Ann Arbor's talk station, 1290 WLBY.

BrightWorks co-working has opened up another, and I think this is the third

new co-working location, this one in downtown Ann Arbor.

Kate Arbor joins us. She is the co-working community manager at BrightWorks.

May I say your social media is hilarious?

You guys do a good job with that. I always love peeking in on that and seeing what you guys are up there.

Yeah. I think the secret is just being open to whatever my social media

strategist comes up with and she comes up with some good ones. I'll get messages

over the weekend going, I've blocked us time on Monday. I hope you're ready.

You seem very agreeable to whatever they come up with. I highly recommend people follow them.

Tell us about this new location. It's just above afternoon delight.

Yeah, so we're kind of like kitty corner above and we're for the first time in BrightWorks.

We are a two-story enterprise. We have the second floor and then a mezzanine level.

What I adore about the space is because we're at the end of a building.

We have windows on three sides and there are skylights on the second floor.

So there is tons of natural light. There's literally quite only one space

that doesn't have natural light pouring into it.

It's interesting. You and I were talking about the history of the building.

It's the darling building. So I had to look this up and the Ann Arbor District Library says

the states back to 1915 and there are two buildings.

Whirling, darling block, they call that area that go back that far.

But it's embellished with a terracotta ornamentation, ornamentation.

An example of a typical art deco-repetitive design motif and it's a brick fireproof structure

that was created for Dr. Darling. It just sounds really interesting to be in a historic building

which of course we have many in downtown Ann Arbor, right?

If you're going to be downtown, it's what comes with the territory.

But it's just such an amazing building because our space has two staircases to the second floor.

We have 23 private offices. We have tons of co-working nooks in spaces.

We created something called the Jane Austen Library nook where you can just go in and sit in a chair

that has a desk that comes around the corner to it. But you're surrounded by all these books

and you can hide away and knock a project out and work.

One of my favorite features, though, of the Bright Works family is that if you are a member

at any one of our locations, you can go in and use one of the other locations. So they're all

accessible to you. Oh, that's great. By the way, Dr. Darling was a leader at St. Joe's.

He served there as Chief of Staff. He was on the faculty of the U of a Medical School,

served as Dean of the School of Dentistry and was active in public affairs. He filled a term

as Mayor of Ann Arbor. There we go. So now you can share that when people come through the tour.

I think that's all the history. The concept of Bright Works co-working, you have all different

levels for people to enjoy. Absolutely. And so who's using this? So what we find is we have virtual

members. Those are people who just kind of come in during our business hours, 9-3 Monday through

Thursday, 9 to noon on Friday. And those are folks that are like, I just need to come in,

knock out a project for a couple hours or I'm between sales meetings and I need to print something

off or research something before I head out. Or there are folks that are like, you know what?

I can't have my business address, be my home address anymore. I need to put it somewhere where I

can go and have access to always check my mail and I know everything's safe and my packages are

received. So that's the first membership. That's $75 a month, can you believe? And then you get

access at all three locations. So if you're doing a sales meeting at, you know, the south side,

pop into 7777. If you're over on the west side, hop into our forest co-flocation.

The next level of membership is our co-working. And this is kind of everything with virtual.

But we up the ante in that you have 24, 7 access, 365 to the space. So if you're coming in from

out of town and you're on your, you know, European time schedule and so you're going to be up and

working at 4 a.m., we're ready for you and we can take you at that time. You have access to the

space because it's all keyless entry, remote through your smartphone. We also have dedicated

co-working desks at all three locations. Add our new location at Brightworks on Liberty,

it's on the second floor, it's an emesiting with a balcony overlooking the lower office space.

And it's got a beautiful skylight. And then our third type of membership is private office.

And we've seen a lot of popularity with this. These are folks that don't necessarily want a thousand

square feet. Don't need a reception desk. What they need is 115 square feet in the ability to close

a door at the end of the day. Right. And so we have 23 private offices at our Brightworks on Liberty

location. You know, $75 per month and downtown Ann Arbor is unheard of. Yeah. And you know,

you think about it. If you're running a business and you don't want your address, your mail coming

to your home address, this is a great opportunity to just kind of know that everything is safe and

secure. It's not a PO box. Even cooler, you get to pin our business location on Google Maps

as your business location when you choose to do a virtual membership with us.

Kate, it seems like there's no stopping co-working experiences. And a lot of people are wondering

when this started and a lot of it grew up out of COVID as well. If this was a fad, if this is

something that that work is going to look different eventually. But I don't see a lot of people,

you know, really going back to the large buildings. They're doing things differently and

choosing how they want to work today. Yeah. What I think is it gives businesses another

opportunity and option. And there are those businesses that want to do the traditional model of

having everybody in the office. And that's fantastic. But there are also businesses that have seen

we actually need to have our folks all over the country to best serve our needs. We don't necessarily

need a building in every state. But we do want to have a dedicated space for our folks to go and

be able to take calls and do their work. So we work with tons of larger businesses, national businesses

that specifically have their folks who work in live in the Ann Arbor area come in and work out

of our space. Can you describe, and I don't want you to share confidences, but that collaboration,

what that looks like at your various locations. So in some locations, we have larger suites.

And so a business has taken the entire suite. And what's great for an entire business kind of

coming in and having four or five people using an area is they don't have to worry about the internet.

That's already set up and taken care of. They don't have to worry about stocking printer paper.

That's already taken care of. They don't have to worry about the coffee taken care of. Cleaners are

set up. They come in every weekend and clean the entire space and empty garbage and do everything.

So all those kind of like maintenance every day things that need to be taken care of are kind of

off their list so they can focus on their business. But what about the collaboration of other

businesses, business to business happening there that otherwise they would not have met? Yeah,

that's really fantastic at one of our. Who are those people? What do they do? We have marketers.

I have several businesses that are reopening their North American offices for the very first time

and they're doing it here in Ann Arbor. And so they need to kind of start their whole marketing.

I have a marketer who is in house as one of our members. I've connected those people so that we

can start kind of building this huge community of businesses and marketing and designers and therapists.

So again, virtual membership $75 a month unlimited co-working access during office hours plus most

of the benefits of full membership. Co-working membership $125 a month. That's 24, 7 access to

all bright works locations, which the other locations are where again? 777. So the corner of East

Eisenhower and State Street. And then Forest Cove is off of Miller Road right after you cross

M14 headed out towards Dexter. Okay. And that 125 a month also includes meeting room credits,

unlimited suite waters, coffee and tea unlimited printing scanning high speed Wi-Fi mail service.

And then you've got your private office memberships from 589 a month dedicated private office 24,

7 for individuals or teams, including all co-working benefits and access to the full bright works

community. You're accepting reservations right now. You just you just open Liberty.

Yes, we just open we are brand new. We're going to be doing our grand opening on March 16th.

Come join us at 4 p.m. But yes, we are brand new open. I have a member there today.

And then we've actually already filled three offices at that location. So we're very excited.

How much can you accommodate at this point? So at this point, we have 20 private offices available

and we could do up to 20 to 30 virtual and co-working members. So this guy's the limit.

This is your third location. Are there going to be more?

That is the big question. We will see what Ann Arbor needs and where we can best serve our community.

To everyone who owns bright works. Yes, exactly. Oh, it's my favorite Oxford companies is our

parent company. That's one of the other big perks and that we can really bring to the table.

If something isn't right or needs to be fixed or there's a maintenance issue in your private

office, we can get it taken care of right away because we have the wonderful services of Oxford

available to us 24 seven. You can go online to brightworkscoworking.com. That's brightworkscoworking.com

or follow bright works on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok. You won't be disappointed.

But again, brightworkscoworking.com. What do you think the future holds for co-working?

I think I see nothing but growth. I hear from more and more businesses. Like I said,

that want to just have offices available to their employees and options available to their employees.

So this is a great way for them to support their workers around the country. I'd recently

attended a conference in North Carolina about co-working and was basically all the operators.

We see good things moving forward. Great to hear. I love all these options people have now

to work and be successful because they're comfortable and they've got what they need and they

don't have to worry about the tech end of things. It makes a difference. 255 East Liberty Street,

the latest in the brightworks portfolio, they've now expanded to downtown Ann Arbor. And they're

the feature on our Ann Arbor Ipsilanti Regional Chamber of Commerce report today. You can visit

a2ychamber.org for more information about the chamber and its members like brightworkscoworking.

Great talking with you, Kate. Thank you so much.

Always a pleasure.

Kate Arbor from Brightworks co-working on the Lucian Lent Show. Kate is the co-working community

manager at Brightworks. You're listening to Ann Arbor's talk station, 1290 WLBY.