What was once a shooting gallery inside the former Maryland National Guard Armory building in downtown Towson has been transformed into a bright and colorful communal workspace, complete with meeting areas, reservable private workstations, sound-insulated call booths, rolling whiteboards and outlets built into just about every piece of furniture.
Towson University has invested two years and several million dollars into transforming the two-floor, over 20,000-square-foot space into StarTUp at the Armory, a workspace for growing companies with and without ties to the school, as well as entrepreneurs and business people from the local community. The space will host an official ribbon-cutting ceremony next week, but the Business Journal got an early look at the new space.
Scroll through the gallery above for a sneak peek of the newly renovated space.
In addition to offering headquarters and office space to more mature local startups, the space will serve as a home base for the StarTUp Accelerator, an eight-week program that allows young ventures to take residency, collaborate and grow. A unique feature of the space is that 6,000 square feet of the main floor is open at all times to members of the public. Patrick McQuown, executive director of entrepreneurship at Towson University, said offering up a portion of this new space as a public resource fits with the college's broader goal to build stronger ties between the school and the Baltimore County business community.
"Outside of a library, I can't think of another place with this much space where anyone can come in, use the Wi-Fi and do their business," McQuown said.
Beyond the publicly accessible areas, there are seven private conference spaces and 15 offices for companies taking full time residency in the building. McQuown, who also heads the StarTUp Accelerator, noted startups that have graduated or will later graduate from the program will be able to take over office or workspace in those private spaces. He added those spaces will be about 85% full when the armory building officially reopens, and some offices will be occupied by economic development and startup support organizations, like Maryland Technology Development Corp. (TEDCO).
And because everyone knows how difficult it can be to build a business without access to a steady flow of caffeine, McQuown was sure to point out a Starbucks is being built out on the first floor.
The armory building adjoins the $350 million Towson Row development project by Greenberg Gibbons and Caves Valley Partners, which will ultimately include more than 80,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space and 150,000 square feet of offices, as well as student housing, luxury apartments and a hotel.
McQuown said he is excited for the armory space to open, and to serve as a kind of "stake in the ground" for the university to become a bigger partner to the Towson community at large.
