The City of Fairborn and COhatch, a social enterprise offering a new kind of shared work, social, and family space built on community, reached an agreement to bring the coworking lifestyle brand to Fairborn, Ohio.
Under the terms of the deal, COhatch will take over the city’s business incubator Spark including its shared kitchen and coworking spaces that was launched in 2018. The City of Fairborn represents the first licensee under the COhatch Community Investment Program.
The Fairborn Development Corporation (FDC) tapped COhatch as a logical extension of its extensive community work to provide access to additional resources and support to help local businesses grow using a collaborative business model and community driven culture which is the centerpiece of COhatch’s mission.
For its part, COhatch will provide further direction and consultative services to Fairborn as it helps city officials take its shared services property to the next level. As a result, COhatch is already working with the FDC to develop and implement a development plan for an entire block of Main Street. This plan will provide unprecedented opportunity to offer a variety of services and growth opportunities for incubator members, as well as additional dining and shopping for the city.
“The citizens of Fairborn couldn’t be happier or more proud of our ongoing downtown redevelopment,” said City Manager Rob Anderson. “We know our citizens love to work, meet and live in the communities they care about. With assistance from COhatch, we are leapfrogging our development for the city, so everything will happen more quickly and at a higher intensity with greater results.”
“The Fairborn location caters to small businesses, start-ups and socially-minded entrepreneurs, who are looking for office space as well community members that want access to space to host social events, meet ups and the like,” said Patrick Williams, local owner/operator for COhatch. “This location currently offers dedicated desks, meeting rooms and coworking space with private offices available this summer. We also offer meeting and event spaces to the public and can accommodate off-site company meetings and the hosting of life events.”
The Fairborn location fits well with the recently launched community investment initiative that enables local owners to build a COhatch at a new location 30 to 50 miles outside of larger metropolitan areas such as Dayton, Ohio. The City of Fairborn will have access to all COhatch shared resources, branded and operational materials, website and digital tools and its network of professional service providers among other assets.
“We are very excited to onboard Fairborn,” said Matt Davis, founder of COhatch. “Fairborn is just one of many inquiries we have received from in-need municipalities that would love to plug into our model for connecting people and communities through our work, meet and live lifestyle concept. In addition, this gives us and the City of Fairborn the opportunity to give back to their community.”
To help facilitate a smooth transition, all existing agreements with current Spark members will be honored, while providing access and opportunity to pursue additional COhatch-related services including workshops, member benefits and business support for the incubator.
Members will also be able to access all COhatch resources and space at any of its locations. They include a standard set of business amenities such as Wi-Fi, desk and fax/mail services. In addition, each COhatch has a unique feature to it like The Madery Makers & Market space in Worthington and a 30-person theater at the Delaware location.
COhatch currently has three locations: “The Hardware Store” and “The Library” in Worthington, Ohio; and “The Newsstand” in Delaware along with “The Hub” at Polaris Fashion Place. Three other locations are under construction and include: The Upper Arlington location “The Overlook”, Polaris Fashion Place “The Pub” that will open in early 2019 and “The Market” in Springfield which is set to open in mid-2019.
