Commonspace: Building a neighborhood within a building

SYRACUSE — Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and were expelled from the Garden of Eden. Troy Evans has created a knowledge source that he calls the “tree of connections.” “The people I’ve met have been invaluable in guiding me on my path,” says Evans, co-owner of Commonspace, LLC.

“When I look back, these connections are like a tree. One person connected me to another person who then introduced me to a third, who became a good friend, mentor, or even a business partner. I believe that the majority of knowledge that exists in Central New York doesn’t just lie in our heads, but in-between our heads. To best tap into this knowledge, real, not virtual, connections are needed.”

Evans wants to create environments that assist in making meaningful connections easier. That’s the concept Commonspace, a five-story building at 201 E. Jefferson St. in downtown Syracuse: The facility is designed to connect people through co-working and co-living. The concept is to bring creative and smart people together to learn from each other and to live as a community. “The idea is to capture the energy generated when you put people with diverse backgrounds together not just in a common space, but in a neighborhood,” explains Evans. “That’s how you really create an innovation hub.”

CoWorks concept
The concept of Commonspace was not an epiphany. “The idea was really … [serendipitous], sparked by my experience at Syracuse CoWorks,” continues Evans. “In my first career, I learned a lot about human behavior by helping companies introduce change into their organizations. The work focused on how to best motivate and engage people to be their best and to achieve their full potential. Evans’ second career was developing real-estate properties, with the hope of gaining financial independence. After juggling dual careers for more than 10 years, he felt fatigued and was ready for a change. “I took some time off to think about my next steps,” he continues. “I wanted to take what I had learned in both careers and create something more meaningful.”

With the help of mentors, Evans began to explore the world outside his home office. “Syracuse CoWorks — which was started by 40 Below, an organization dedicated to providing young professionals with a platform to connect and create — was located at the time in 900 square feet [of space] at the [Syracuse] Tech Garden,” he recalls. “I found myself in a common work area with 10 other people who were also tired of their former isolation. One of the 10 was John [Talarico], and through our mutual interests we formed a partnership … The collision of ideas in this setting … [propelled] me to look beyond just sharing work space.”

In 2012, Evans began studying co-working properties in other cities. “The basic idea seemed to be to bring people from different organizations together to share space and some common amenities such as WiFi, network printers, and conferce rooms,” notes Evans. “Co-working tends to attract freelancers, work-at-home professionals, independent contractors, those who travel frequently, and others who are tired of working out of a coffee shop or café… My goal was to learn the best practices of other co-working spaces around the country and use them to create the next generation of Syracuse CoWorks. Today, the co-working concept is international … I think of the idea as working alone, together.”

Researching co-working led Evans to understand that there was more involved than just offering physical space and selling desk tops. The key was to establish a co-working community first by creating an environment to encourage social, collaborative, and informal interactions. “To do this,” Evans opines, “we wanted to build out a world-class office environment, setting it up as a nonprofit created by the members for the members. With this in mind, we continued on the theme of community by adding a residential component adjacent to the work space. This is what really separates Commonspace from other co-working environments: Through our apartment concept, we provide on-premises micro-units that are not only completely furnished but very affordable.”

Creating Commonspace
In May 2014, Evans closed on an asset purchase with Tom Greenwood, owner of the five-story, 30,000-square-foot building at 201 E. Jefferson St. “The building was 50-percent occupied and losing money,” recalls the new owner. “We received a $50,000 grant from the [Syracuse] Downtown Committee and a $225,000 grant from the Empire State Development Corp. to help pay for the cost of remodeling the building. Our first task was to attract what the real-estate industry calls the anchor tenant. To us, securing Syracuse CoWorks as a tenant was the key to creating the sharing-environment that would draw the occupants to the building. Commonspace and a group of sponsors spent $175,000 building out 5,000 square feet of space on the second floor space to house Syracuse CoWorks, with some of the work performed by member volunteers. The cost of remodeling the second floor was supported financially by 40 Below, the Gifford Foundation, Onondaga Civic Development Corp., National Grid, Harris Beach, Pathfinder Bank, and the New York Main Street Program. Pathfinder Bank also provided a commercial loan to fund a portion of the project.”

Evans committed $50,000 personally to the Syracuse CoWorks remodeling. The total cost of buying and remodeling Commonspace was $2.4 million.

Syracuse CoWorks
Syracuse CoWorks was formed in 2012 and now operates as a not-for-profit corporation. Amy Wyant, CEO of Tech Geekery, Inc. and an early tenant and current president of the nonprofit corporation, explains the secret sauce that attracts members. “This is a unique space,” she enthuses. “We have 70 members who bring their own backgrounds and perspectives on things. The interaction is just amazing. Every [weekday] evening, StartFast Code holds classes in this space to teach web programming.

On the first Wednesday of each month, one or two early stage startups or independent, business owners present their companies to a diverse audience of their peers, mentors, educators, and advisers and then hold a Q&A session plus feedback. This program is called ‘1-Million Cups’ and was developed by the Kauffman Foundation to educate and connect entrepreneurs. The format encourages entrepreneurs to network and discover solutions over a cup of coffee.

“Syracuse CoWorks also sponsors the CNY Drone Club and OpenHack Syracuse, which meet here monthly,” Wyant continues. (OpenHack invites developers and designers to code together on anything: language, framework, public/open-source, personal projects, or even client work). “SALT Makerspace also occupies 400 square feet on the second floor and offers a community-operated facility that provides collaborative space with 3D printing and prototyping tools. This space is a beehive of activity; the only differences are that we make honey through connectivity and bees, unlike our members, slow down after dark.”

Syracuse CoWorks offers three levels of membership ranging from $66 per-month to $200 per-month. In addition to utilizing the space 24/7, members also have secure access to the building; a kitchen area with fridge, ice-maker, and sink; free coffee; conference room; large-area space for presentations or training; free WiFi; lounge areas; a rooftop deck; and ergonomic workstations.

The Commonspace plan
“While I may be hooked on the concept of community,” notes Evans, “creating a sustainable business model was important to the success of the entire project. Securing Syracuse CoWorks gave the building life and rebranded it as an entrepreneurial hub. Commonspace has also retained three law firms on the third floor and retail tenants on the first floor. What we developed on floors four and five was a new model of living, where the residents have their own furnished, micro-units built around a shared-living space designed for cooking, eating, and hanging out. Each micro-unit has a tiny kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom contained in 300 to 400 square feet that is exceptionally soundproof. The shared areas include a chef’s kitchen, game room, library, and a TV room.” Wyant quips that “… the tenants only need to provide their own linen, clothes, and food.”

Other tenant amenities include a monthly farm-to-fork dinner, automatic membership in Syracuse CoWorks, Internet, bike sharing, laundry facilities, storage, and a roof-top deck.

“We also support tenant communication through social media and Slack channels,” Wyant states, “One tenant, for example, will announce on Slack that he or she is headed to Armory Square for a night out and a half dozen tenants will join up … The micro-units start at $850 a month with the option of renting a unit on a one-, three-, six-, or 12-month basis. Currently, 60 percent of the tenants rent on an annual basis, the tenant makeup is 50 percent male and 50 percent female, the tenants come from six different countries and seven states, most are young professionals between the ages of 25 and 40, and 85 percent did not grow up in Syracuse.” Commonspace has no posted rules for the tenants; they create their own rules, per Wyant.

Marketing Commonspace
How did Evans market his new concept? “We really didn’t need to do any marketing,” Evans responds to the question. “In November 2015, about seven months before Commonspace opened, The Atlantic magazine ran an article about our model. The article got 300,000 hits, and I was … [inundated] with inquiries. There were literally thousands of people who wanted to come to Syracuse and join us. Thanks largely to The Atlantic article plus word-of-mouth and our web site, the apartments were fully occupied on June 1st when we opened. Commonspace maintains a waiting list, but there has been very little turnover to date. There certainly is a diversity of tenants, most of whom are young professionals. Many also have cars and drive to work in the suburbs, which is counterintuitive and suggests they prefer the energy found in downtown living … Part of the Commonspace concept was to help revitalize the city, and I think we may be playing a small part in doing that.”

THE PRINCIPALS

Troy Evans
Evans, 38, grew up in Roscoe, New York. He earned a B.S. in computer engineering from Syracuse University in 2000 and joined Lockheed Martin in Philadelphia as a systems engineer. Evans left Lockheed Martin in 2003 and went to work for two years at BAE Systems in Rome as a process-improvement engineer. In 2005, he joined Syracuse Research Corp. for a 7.5-year stint as a strategic, organizational-change manager. While working in Central New York, Evans formed a real-estate company in 2009 called Hometown Community II, which focused initially on residential properties. In Nov. 2015, he renamed and rebranded the company 16th Avenue, Inc., which became the vehicle for his development of both residential and commercial real estate. The 16th Avenue portfolio currently holds properties including the Mill Pond Landing building in Armory Square, a four-story office building at 731 James St., and a mobile-home community in the town of Hastings. Commonspace, LLC is a separate company, which holds title to and serves as the operating company for the property at 201 E. Jefferson St. Evans and Talarico are partners in this venture. Evans lives with his wife and daughter in Cazenovia.

John Talarico
Talarico earned his BFA/computer graphics degree from Syracuse University in 1992. He worked for four years at National Grid as a senior analyst and spent about five years at Dart Communications as a senior software engineer. He was a co-founder of Runaway Creations, an independent game-development company, and a co-founder of Syracuse CoWorks. Talarico is also a founding partner in Avenue 80, Inc., a custom-software development company, and currently works at Open Automation Software as a senior web engineer. Talarico holds a minority stake in Commonspace.

The next step
Ask Evans what’s the next step with Commonspace, and he’ll reply: “We need to evaluate the operation further. Currently, we are tweaking how we do things as we listen to the tenants. I feel the idea is sound. We are attracting attention from economic developers from around the country who are contacting us to duplicate the project. I’m very pleased with how we have developed and … [executed] the concept, but we want to feel more comfortable with the process. That’s not to say John and I don’t have ideas of expanding our concept of Commonspace. From a business perspective, we’re pleasantly surprised that we earn more money per-square-foot with the Commonspace model than with a conventional real-estate model. We have looked at other upstate cities such as Rochester, Buffalo, and Albany, as well as Cleveland, [Ohio]. The key is to find an affordable building in an urban setting that can be rehabbed. This is definitely a scalable project, but we’re in no hurry; it has to be the right property. The motivation here is simple: We want to do cool things that are both profitable and fun.”

Evans and Talarico have created a “tree of connections” that has produced a unique environment for transmitting knowledge. It’s very much a hands-on project molded both by the owners and by the tenants. Together they have created a neighborhood inside an urban building that sparks new ideas as well as friendships.

Contact Poltenson at npoltenson@cnybj.com