Small business owners and entrepreneurs uninterested in hunkering down in a home office or coffee shop have an alternative in Sandbox Gahanna.
Located at 155 Mill St., the facility offers WiFi, copying/printing/scanning/fax capabilities, a conference area, a kitchenette, a lounge area, and complimentary water and coffee.
“We had this empty space and wanted to do something that benefited the community,” says Chris Lottridge, owner of Sandbox Gahanna, which opened in June of last year.
“Being Gahanna residents with kids in the Gahanna school system… It was important to us,” he says, adding that an April 2009 article in The Columbus Dispatch about coworking piqued his interest and a meeting with Sandbox Columbus Founder Dave Hunegnaw sealed the deal, so to speak.
Sandbox Gahanna currently has 12 clients who either rent a desk or use the event space exclusively, including Jovia Web Studios, Shaping the Page, Skye Closings, SEK Accounting, Accord Financial Planning, Big Deal on Campus, Lighthouse Fellowship, Lyoga Flow, N2XT LLC, Mike Francis of Kage Dojo, Net Point Marketing, and the Small Business Beanstalk.
Right now, five desks are available, Lottridge says.
A full-time membership, which includes 24/7 keyed access, costs $275 per month and a part-time membership, which affords access Monday-Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., costs $125 per month.
When asked to explain the advantages Sandbox Gahanna has over a home office, the answer is difficult for Lottridge to pin down.
“Cowork, cowork, cowork… It’s hard to explain until you are knee deep in it,” he says. “The networking and access to contacts within these walls are amazing. If you have any technical questions about almost anything, the answer lies within this space.”
However, Sandbox Gahanna’s aim is easier to articulate.
“Our goal is seeing our clients achieve theirs,” he says. “Two of our former clients now rent space at Creekside. We are hopefully a platform for the entrepreneur or small business owner to achieve success sooner rather than later. Getting bogged down with expensive overhead or not having networking capabilities could detour a vision or an amazing idea.”
To learn more about Sandbox Gahanna , visit SandboxGahanna.com.
