By Heather Lusk
Prompted by demand for more memberships than its current building can hold, zWORKS is adding an expansion on Pine Street.
The co-working space, which opened in 2015, has more than 200 members with nine on a wait list.
The new unnamed location will serve as an annex at 75 East Pine St. Eight meeting rooms will be configured — three dedicated to startup companies, one large conference room and four general meeting rooms. The conference and meeting rooms will be reserved electronically by zWORKS members for an hour, a day or a week.
“We find that is a real need for our members, that closed-door space for meetings, brainstorming, team building,” zWORKS Executive Director Kate Swanson said. “There seemed to be a real demand.”
The dedicated offices for startups will be reserved on a monthly basis. The Cedar Street zWORKS location has two areas for startup businesses with demand for more, according to Swanson. One area was originally a conference room but was converted to office space for new businesses that require more room.
“It’s an awesome option for these companies who don’t know how fast they’re growing,” she said. “It’s hard to predict these things.”
Swanson hopes the annex will be open by the end of February.
The remodel will be paid by the nonprofit zWORKS, which receives funding from membership and donors like Barnes & Thornburg and the Town of Zionsville.
“We’ve been conservative with our expenses knowing that we would hopefully be growing,” Swanson said. “We have the money that we’ve set aside for this but we depend a lot on donors.”
Swanson said that those on the wait list will be invited to become members soon.
“Now that we’ve signed the lease and we know that this is going to open very soon, we see relief in sight,” she said.
