One of Denver’s veteran coworking companies is bringing new life to a defunct Centennial coworking space.
Thrive Workplace, which currently operates locations in Cherry Creek, Ballpark and Arvada, signed a lease this week to operate coworking in Innovation Pavilion’s old building.
Innovation Pavilion, which billed itself as a startup incubator, event and coworking space, shut down in 2018 after former employees accused founder Vic Ahmed of sexual assault.
The 22,000-square-foot space at 9200 E. Mineral Ave. was a good fit for Thrive for multiple reasons, according to Alex Neil, Thrive’s community and business development manager. Neil said individuals are working out of the space, even though IP is no longer operating it.
“We’re preserving a community that was built up,” Neil said. “Even though it wasn’t necessarily our first choice of location, I don’t think it was necessarily a bad one. It’s off the highway. It doesn’t have quite the visibility that we typically like.”
Neil said a clincher in choosing the old IP location was the fact that it was already built out in a way that suited the Thrive brand, with conference rooms, small offices and open spaces. Plus, Thrive members have been asking for an outpost in south Denver for some time now.
“We’ve known we needed to enter that market for a while,” Neil said.
The Denver Tech Center currently has a spattering of coworking options, including Enterprise Coworking and Serendipity Labs in Greenwood Village. Thrive is not done expanding in Denver’s southern suburbs either. Neil said the coworking company is planning to open at least one or two more spaces in the Lone Tree or the north part of the DTC.
“There’s definitely plenty of need and work down there,” Neil said.
Thrive already has some experience expanding to the suburbs, with a new location in Arvada that opened this January.
“The biggest challenge that we have out there is probably an education of what coworking is,” Neil said, adding that potential members have a hard time justifying a higher membership price than traditional office leasing. However, they don’t factor in the money they save on WiFi, printing, and other amenities Thrive provides for its members.
Thrive, founded in 2010, opened its current location in Cherry Creek in 2013 and its Ballpark location in 2015. Thrive tenants have included Trumaker, a Denver startup that makes custom men’s clothing. In addition, Facebook rented space from Thrive prior to opening its newest downtown office.
Neil said Ballpark is at 90 percent capacity, while Cherry Creek is at 100 percent.
“We don’t have that rent-due-on-Monday mentality,” Neil said. “We try not to take that cookie-cutter approach and really do things that make sense for your business. We’ve truly valued the relationships that come in.”
Thrive Workplace Centennial plans to finish its buildout on the space in May of 2020, Neil said. Memberships start at $50 per month.
