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http://vancouver.hackspace.ca/doku.php
In short, there seems to be plenty of interest, but other projects like Workspace have failed by over-reaching their targets.
From what I am hearing from you I think what you want to do is three fold: (1) have a workshop for people to work in, (2) have a coworking facility (office space) and (3) to have a hackerspace.
The first one requires space and expensive tools.
The second requires a comfortable office space to work in.
The third requires a solid community that perceives the value of sharing ideas and having a place exclusively for workshops.
I'm not going to say that serving all three goals is not possible but as we explored them we found that without a donation of space and/or serious capital investment the first two would be somewhat difficult.
We opted to go with the third option and stick to it (some tools in the space though) and we are now profitable with 19 members at a $50 a month membership fee. I think the real benefit to a hackerspace is being part of a community that is about encouragment, sharing and doing.
It's been a blast so far and I am really glad to be part of this crew, I strongly recommend if anything that you try to establish a simple non-profit hackerspace to encourage general hackery.
Also, not sure why this hasn't come up yet, http://hackerspaces.org
We just went through a lot of these questions ourself while founding Baltimore Node ( http://www.baltimorenode.org ) which is now a small hackerspace in Baltimore. From what I am hearing from you I think what you want to do is three fold: (1) have a workshop for people to work in, (2) have a coworking facility (office space) and (3) to have a hackerspace. The first one requires space and expensive tools. The second r…
Hackerspaces.org has been a helpful resource for me as I was researching this over the last week. I encourage anyone else who is interested in it to check out some of their awesome projects to see what is possible.
My goal would be to have a serious capital injection to start this off. I don't know where it is going to come from, but I am seriously looking into government grants. I don't know what kind of strings will come attached yet, and it sickens my inner objectivist, but it seems like a great match for this kind of organization. BC happens to have a whole range of accessible grants, from the arts to small business to tech. Maybe it will be too much hassle, but it solves the problem of seed capital.
> The idea would be that the tenants of the building would be hardware startups who would use the space during the day, and it would be open for hacking and workshops by night. So you're going to look for startups where all the employees leave by 5pm? ...and you're further going to tell them that their space is not secure, and anything that they leave out on a desk will be seen by hundreds of strangers? That sounds r…
These are fair concerns. I think they can be engineered around, however. There would be lockers available, as well as secured office space. Also, the office workers wouldn't have to leave by 5pm, it would just become more crowded. There would need to be an efficient registration system to make sure the shared resources were fairly allocated in these busy times.
Anything to get you starting higher than the ground floor would be ideal
Sounds like http://techshop.ws/ or http://portlandtechshop.com/ Both sites have a breakdown of what they have on site, and you could get an idea of the pricing. It may also be a good idea to get in touch with the people who own/run it to get their take on the business side.
I think you should probably contact #VHS to see if they are interested, what they have learned (they are currently running and in the black), and to gauge interest. http://vancouver.hackspace.ca/doku.php In short, there seems to be plenty of interest, but other projects like Workspace have failed by over-reaching their targets.
I really like their 'principles' page. I think that's important to have up in writing, publicly, and not fixed in stone.
Their insistence on GPL'ing everything might be an issue. I would hope that most projects would be GPL'ed, but it would definitely limit the business potential having it mandated.