Commanding Chaos for Coworking, Open Source and Creative Communities

Orlando Co-working space - Orlando Business Journal

Thu, 05/29/2014 - 12:59 -- rprice

co-working spaces in Orlando this week officially became a trend. Dennis Pape, the founder of Florida Venture Sourcing and VenturePitch Orlando on May 28 announced his latest venture: Catalyst, a 7,000-square-foot collaborative shared workspace for entrepreneurs, startups and freelancers, which is opening late this summer in downtown Orlando in the Yowell-Duckworth Building at 1 S. Orange Ave. And consider that Florida Hospital is planning a 15,000- to 30,00-square-foot co-working space and incubator in Health Village. And Canvs, a nonprofit, is building out a 17,000-square-foot co-working space at the Church Street Exchange building that’s opening this summer, as well. Sure, there’s already co-working space in Orlando like Colab, but still: Three new spaces with potentially more than 50,000 square feet of space combined seems like a lot. So are we seeing a bubble? “I don’t know that it’s a bubble, but it’s probably not unlimited demand either,” said David Banks, executive vice president and chief strategy officer for the Florida Division of Adventist Health System. “At the scale we’re building, there’s probably room for a couple to exist.”