2 Slants on A Slow-Moving Story > Co-Working Space CO+HOOTS
In retrospect it's hard to say if two recent stories about CO+HOOTS are in any way 'head-turners', except to note that after close to two years there are few tangible or visible results to see for The Rise of Mesa's Innovation District, a $40,000 Road Show staged by the Brookings Instititution inside the Ikeda Theater at the Mesa Arts Center in January 2018. It never got off-the-ground for many reasons. First of all, the urban-planning tool-box concept of developing Innovation Districts has mixed-results in six years that are city-specific and dependent on 12 basic "pillars" to succeed. Per usual, there was plenty of spoon-fed media hype both ahead and after the 2-hour event with two big real estate developers on-stage, an ASU Associate Vice-President, and Jenny Poons, CO+HOOTS Founder, an unknown start-up. _________________________________________________________________________
Fast-forward to now following some newer development plans thrown into-the-mix [way too complex to go into more details in this post], the Mesa City Council moved to make some concessions they hoped would solve a conundrum of sorts to respond to criticisms of both the unfavorable treatment of Benedictine University [compared to generous 'give-aways' to ASU], and what to do with CO-HOOTS when financing for The Grid Project failed after more than three rounds in two years to materialize. . . throw two things together and hope it works! So what we got in two stories from mainstream media is the attempt to manipulate the public's perception - one very quick the day after the Mesa City Council meeting on December 9th, and one about two weeks later. Each one has a very different slant. _________________________________________________________ BLOGGER NOTE: For those who want to see the actual streaming video of the last meeting of the year for the Mesa City Council, here it is ... Be amazed that Kevin Christopher reads the Consent Agenda at the start!
_________________________________________________________ >> This was published online 10 December 2019
Mesa OKs $2M Benedictine University campus upgrades to land Co+Hoots coworking space
A design rendering of Co+Hoots Mesa at Benedictine University in downtown. (Photo: Courtesy of CO+HOOTS)
"Mesa will spend up to $2 million to renovate Benedictine University’s downtown campus and facilitate the school's new partnership with Co+Hoots, a private coworking business.
An agreement unanimously approved by the City Council on Monday commits Mesa — the landlord of Benedictine’s 225 E. Main Street building — to design and build out 10,000 square feet for Benedictine to provide "rent-free" to Co+Hoots.
Jeff McVay, Mesa’s manager of downtown transformation, told The Arizona Republic that the city’s agreement is specifically with Benedictine, not with Co+Hoots. As a by-product of that agreement, though, the Phoenix-based coworking company will have a building in downtown Mesa for its commercial coworking space and to partner with the university, he said.
"This is a key component of our attempt to establish a downtown innovation district,"McVay said, pointing to university growth, employment expansion, investment and innovation in downtown Mesa.
BLOGGER NOTE: This 'saving-face" minimal $2M-investment in Benedictine comes at the same time Mesa has promised to spend more than $63.5 million for the design and construction of a new building for Arizona State University that's morphing into a 360-Degree Dilemma.
BLOGGER NOTE: At this point-in-time six years after Benedictine University started a satellite campus in small and incremental steps decentralized in downtown by converting and adapting existing buildings with new uses, 'dropping the rent" is not something the city can brag about when those charges were excessive to start
In Walsh's writing, the slant of the conversation has changed significantly - still using the word district - with an obvious shift by McVay from innovation to entrepreneurship. HOLD ON JUST ONE MINUTE! Here's what the all the media hype was all about in Feb 2018 - it was a totally different story for the two founders of CO+HOOTS taken from an earlier post MesaZona
After being named the No. 1 most innovative co-working space in the United States, Co+Hoots isn’t stopping there. The entrepreneurial focused company is set to expand to Downtown Mesa in the fall of 2019. Co+Hoots is a collaborative shared office space that currently supports hundreds of entrepreneurs at its Phoenix location. With Co+Hoots’ midtown Phoenix location only being open for two years, the company just shared it will be moving into a new location in Downtown Mesa which is planned to open in late 2019. ________________________________________________________________ Blogger Note: Some of the assertions made in the opening paragraph perhaps exaggerates the numbers of entrepreneurs in the Phoenix location - other reports have stated about 125, not the "hundreds" mentioned in this article. Please also note that no sources are given for other claims asserted that Co+Hoots is "the No. 1 overall co-working space in the state No. 2 overall in the nation No. 9 overall in the world." __________________________________________________________________________
Here's an upload on YouTube of the two partners in Co+Hoots - Odeon Domingo and Jenny Poon who are married - that are mentioned in the article taken from who make a presentation with the $59M GRID Project real estate developer Tony Wall. The original proposal was with the 3W Group, changed to Palladium Partners or Palladium Enterprises as stated.
Co+Hoots will be the anchor office tenant at an upcoming $59 million mixed-use project dubbed The GRID, which will be located near the Benedictine University in Downtown Mesa. Mesa Mayor John Giles announced the project during his State of the City address in early February. Palladium Enterprises will be developing the project, which will include residential and retail components. When Co+Hoots first started looking into expanding into different locations or cities, Co+Hoots Founding Member Odeen Domingosaid they knew they didn’t want to go somewhere that already had co-working spaces that entrepreneurs could go to. . .
The Downtown Mesa location is projected to be in a 13,500-square-foot space that will house hundreds of entrepreneurs and companies in addition to Co+Hoots’ current location. The new space will feature twenty private offices, weekly “lunch and learns,” and a collaboration with Benedictine University to offer students scholarships, mentorship, internship and career opportunities.Co+Hoots was founded in 2010 after husband and wife duo, Jenny Poon and Odeen Domingo, needed an office space to house their design and branding company, Eeko Studio. When spare bedroom work spaces and Starbucks meetings just weren’t cutting it, Domingo says they looked to find a small space in Downtown Phoenix to support their business. “There wasn’t anything like that, a small space that we could afford to go into. It just didn’t exist then,” Domingo said. “We wanted to just get a larger office, put in people that we knew and kind of pull in our resources and have a shared office space.”
___________________________________________________________________________________OK > Back ti Jim Walsh's story
"Jenny Poon is the founder of Co+Hoots Phoenix and is bringing the concept to Benedictine University’s downtown Mesa campus to provide classes and mentoring to entrepeneurs starting new businesses." Special to the Tribune _______________________________________
"Benedictine University’s Mesa campus will receive a significant rent reduction to help it grow, while the city also spends up to $2 million to add 10,000 square feet of office space to accommodate a new entrepreneurship program.Benedictine and Co+Hoots, a major Phoenix co-working and business incubation company, will launch the new Co+Hoots Institute for Entrepreneurship at Benedictine University next year. "Benedictine, an Illinois-based Catholic University, opened in Mesa in 2013 and rents a city building at 225 W. Main St. across from city hall.
The Mesa campus has an enrollment of 586 students, according to a city council report.
The council voted 7-0 to approve the lease amendment on Monday and welcomed Co+Hoots owners Odeen Domingo and his wife, Jenny Poon, to Mesa.
The entrepreneurship program – launched through a partnership between Co+Hoots and Benedictine – is expected to include classes and mentoring, matching students with entrepreneurs who can guide them in the creation of startup businesses."
". . . Benedictine’s lease with Mesa was extended from 15 to 25 years.
A graduated series of rent reductions peak between this month and July 31, 2022, with a 70% reduction – from $666,600 annually to $199,998.
After, the lease reductions decline to 50% between 2022 and 2025 and 30% from 2025-2028.
Jeff McVay, Mesa’s downtown transformation manager, views the entrepreneurship program as a critical element of Mesa’s much-talked-about Innovation District.
The concept, first recommended by the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, D.C., involves the encouragement of collaboration eventually turns new ideas into new companies based in Mesa.
“We are trying to create an entrepreneurship ecosystem,’’McVay said.
“The over-arching goal is Benedictine will have more space,’’ making it possible for them to expand, attracting more students and hiring more staff.
The break on the lease comes with some strings attached, he said.
“Every year, Benedictine will have to say, ‘this is what we accomplished with the savings’’ from the lease reduction, McVay said, with the city hoping Benedictine will build another 10,000 square feet on their own. “Their size is limited by the amount of faculty they have onboard and the space.’’
After the entrepreneurship program opens and students start interacting with mentors, McVay said the city is hoping new, innovative businesses will sprout.
“By the time they are done with the program, we hope they will open a business and they will do it in downtown Mesa,’’ he said.
Benedictine, an Illinois-based Catholic University, opened in Mesa in 2013 and rents a city building at 225 W. Main St. across from city hall.
The Mesa campus has an enrollment of 586 students, according to a city council report.The council voted 7-0 to approve the lease amendment on Monday and welcomed Co+Hoots owners Odeen Domingo and his wife, Jenny Poon, to Mesa.
The entrepreneurship program – launched through a partnership between Co+Hoots and Benedictine – is expected to include classes and mentoring, matching students with entrepreneurs who can guide them in the creation of startup businesses."
". . . Benedictine’s lease with Mesa was extended from 15 to 25 years.
A graduated series of rent reductions peak between this month and July 31, 2022, with a 70% reduction – from $666,600 annually to $199,998.
After, the lease reductions decline to 50% between 2022 and 2025 and 30% from 2025-2028.
Jeff McVay, Mesa’s downtown transformation manager, views the entrepreneurship program as a critical element of Mesa’s much-talked-about Innovation District.
The concept, first recommended by the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, D.C., involves the encouragement of collaboration eventually turns new ideas into new companies based in Mesa.
“We are trying to create an entrepreneurship ecosystem,’’ McVay said.
“The over-arching goal is Benedictine will have more space,’’ making it possible for them to expand, attracting more students and hiring more staff.
The break on the lease comes with some strings attached, he said.
“Every year, Benedictine will have to say, ‘this is what we accomplished with the savings’’ from the lease reduction, McVay said, with the city hoping Benedictine will build another 10,000 square feet on their own. “Their size is limited by the amount of faculty they have onboard and the space.’’
After the entrepreneurship program opens and students start interacting with mentors, McVay said the city is hoping new, innovative businesses will sprout.
“By the time they are done with the program, we hope they will open a business and they will do it in downtown Mesa,’’ he said.
First of all, the urban-planning tool-box concept of developing Innovation Districts has mixed-results in six years that are city-specific and dependent on 12 basic "pillars" to succeed.
"Jenny Poon is the founder of Co+Hoots Phoenix and is bringing the concept to Benedictine University’s downtown Mesa campus to provide classes and mentoring to entrepeneurs starting new businesses."
