Co-Working in Every Neighborhood: Chicago's 120+ Shared Work Spaces

Picture this: You’re an entrepreneur with a great idea, a few employees and a whole lot of potential. Now you just need an office.

Turns out you’ve hit the the office space jackpot if you’re building a company in Chicago. Over the last few years, co-working spaces, incubators and accelerators have exploded in the Windy City, making it the ideal place to find short-term office space.

With the rise of numerous co-working spaces, Sam Rosen launched DeskPass in 2015, a locally-based online platform that allows people to reserve spots at co-working spaces in their area. The service operates in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Denver and Austin, Texas. Deskpass currently has about 45 Chicago co-working spaces on its platform.

Nicole Vasquez, the chief community officer at DeskPass and the founder of The Shift and Second Shift, co-working spaces on the platform, says she’s noticing a shift from downtown co-working spaces to neighborhood spaces. Over the last two years, there has been a wave of co-working spaces that have popped up in Chicago neighborhoods on the north, west and south sides, as well as those opening in the suburbs.

“People are recognizing that there’s a need outside of the downtown area,” Vazquez said. “We need [co-working spaces] in every neighborhood.”

In addition to local co-working spaces popping up in neighborhoods around the city, even the more corporate co-working companies, like Level Office and WeWork, have upped their presence in Chicago. WeWork now has six locations in Chicago, and Level Office has four.

Megan Dodds, community director of the Midwest at WeWork, said there are a variety of companies working out of WeWork, not just tech companies or startups. There are freelancers, mid-market companies and Fortune 500 companies all operating out of their spaces.

“More and more people, regardless of generation, race and geography, are looking for personal fulfillment,” Dodds said. “They really want to work in an environment that’s energetic, inspiring and one in which they’re surrounded by others who want the same thing.”

With so many options, it can be hard to choose which co-working space is right for a company’s needs. To help break it down, Chicago Inno has compiled a comprehensive list of every co-working space, incubator and accelerator in the Chicagoland area. With nearly 130 sites, which stem from in the heart of the Loop to the southwest suburbs, there’s truly a place for everyone.

Check out the full list below: