The Coop

I discovered coworking before it was an international trend. In 2008, Patrick Griffin and I opened The Coop in Fulton Market, then an up and coming neighborhood, as Chicago's first official coworking space.

At the time there were roughly 300 coworking spaces in the entire world. Most people had never heard the word.

As demand for coworking grew, The Coop moved downtown in 2011 to an open, roomy loft of more than 5,500 square feet in River North.

We grew from 8 desks to more than 80 members.

In 2013 we sold The Coop to NextSpace, a California-based operator looking for a Chicago hub. It was one of the first space acquisitions in the industry.

Today there are more than 30,000 coworking spaces worldwide, with nearly 300 in the Chicagoland area alone.