Marie Rachelle had her moments during the past two years as she pursued a coworking project in Hamburg.
The opening day is finally in sight.
Rachelle is the founder of Convergence Coworking, which will debut this spring at 4900 Lake Shore Road, on Lake Erie.
The freelance marketer – Rachelle also runs the region’s annual Freelance Business Week – Rachelle was initially hoping to open Convergence Coworking in 2020.
Like so many projects that year, things didn’t go as planned.
“As a single mother of two and a full-time freelancer, it’s been incredibly difficult,” Rachelle said. “I’ve been taking every dollar I earn and dumping it into this opportunity that I know will pay off in the end.”
Rachelle is already accepting applications for Convergence, which is under construction. The space will include a private office for longer-term leases and a conference room for short-term rentals. The ground-floor coworking space will double as an event space. Rachelle is also furnishing a rentable podcast studio.
In all, she said, it’s a space that is unique to the Hamburg region and is geared toward other solopreneurs. Rachelle said that coworking has caught a strong wind these past few years as remote workers look for alternatives to their bedrooms and home offices.
Rachelle has been dedicated to bootstrapping the effort out of her own savings. When her boyfriend’s parents were replacing their kitchen, she drove to South Carolina, rented a U-haul and brought the cabinets and granite back to Hamburg.
“My space is specifically for freelancers, solopreneurs and remote workers, and we’re just independent by nature,” she said. “I wanted to be able to do it on my own. And by the time it’s open and thriving, it’s going to feel amazing. We’re three months away from this dream I’ve had.”
