Linden Makerspace Proposal

SOUTH LINDEN INNOVATION MAKERSPACE FINAL PROPOSAL

YUMENG SUN & ALI ISSE CRPLAN 6930: NEIGHBORHOOD PLANNING STUDIO PROF. BERNADETTE HANLON & PROF JASON REECE FALL, 2017

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY South Linden neighborhood residents have endured many economic challenges that hamper the abilities of aspiring entrepreneurs to succeed. Currently, the overarching community needs are more jobs and better housing. In order to address these concerns, it is imperative to set up local economic opportunities for the residents. Entrepreneurs in the neighborhood lack courage and skills to enact new businesses or device products; and due to lack of supportive services and training, they are also unable to grow their startup businesses.

In recent years, South Linden neighborhood has received substantial attention from the City of Columbus administration to create initiatives that intend to provide jobs and services to the neighborhood. In an attempt to help the city to effectively improve the lives of the youth and create conducive environment and working skills for potential entrepreneurs, our tactical team is proposing to establish a Makerspace organization that will increase access to skills and physical tools within a collaborative community. In addition to the physical tools, interested community members will have training opportunities that will help them learn, make and inspire with the use of latest technologies including 3D printers, Adobe Suite programs, AutoCAD and ArcGIS software.

This program is a typical Makerspace, which is a collective organization designed to provide skills and tools to all Linden neighborhood residents and public members with similar interests.

Depending on the size of the membership, the Makerspace will occupy 3000 to 6000 square feet.

Potential available tools will depend on the initiatives of entrepreneurs and their interest, but will largely contain Woodworking, Metalworking, Mechanical Tools, Art Tools, and Software. Tools will be purchased by grants received from government and non-government sources, membership contributions and community donations.

Funding The community will take advantage of numerous resources are at their disposal including the “Neighborhood Commercial Revitalization Initiative�, City of Columbus grants, membership fees, and community donations.

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INTRODUCTION This Makerspace will be equipped with tools that are available to community members at all scheduled times of operation. These tools will include, but not limited, to woodworks, metalwork, mechanical tools (pliers, strippers, hacksaws, hammers, utility knifes, glass cutters-to name few), computers, software programs (AutoCAD, Adobe Suite, ArcGIS), 3D printers in a conducive working spaces.

In the initial state of operation, the Makerspace will run intra community campaigns and external grants to accumulate sufficient startup capital to build, equip and run the new space. It will accept any voluntary donations, be it monetary or tools, from community members and other well-wishers from other communities.

The Makerspace will encourage youth and entrepreneurial minds in the community to access tools they otherwise could not able to buy on individual bases in order to implement their mini projects. They will also be encouraged to take advantage of training programs and volunteer instructors and numerous other supportive incentives at their disposal. The initiatives, skills and tools that are available in this Makerspace will surely encourage participating members to create small businesses or ventures and expand their influence throughout the neighborhood. The operation and contribution of the Makerspace, and how the government and local community will support will be thoroughly discussed in the methodology section.

LITERATURE REVIEW Of the Makerspaces studied, members unanimously agreed that economic development was a key component of their contribution to their communities. Makerspaces contribute to economic development in four principle ways: (1) creating a cultural change, by encouraging entrepreneurship in the community; (2) supporting small business growth through the provision of services; (3) providing workforce training; and (4) increasing workforce retention.1 In particular, the areas studied lie outside of major metropolitan areas with the intention of understanding whether Makerspaces contribute to economic development beyond populated

1 Van Holm. (2015). Makerspaces: Contribution to Economic Development in Tier2 and Smaller Cities

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areas served by TechShop.2 These areas have greater need for low-cost economic development tools. On January 2014, a 65,000-square ft. Makerspace, Columbus Idea Foundry, was erected near downtown Columbus. One of the founders has described it as the “largest Makerspace on the planet,”3 it has a monthly membership fee of $35 and other extra fees for hourly use. Their tool sets have different hourly rates depending on the tool set costs. Tools like 3D printers, laser cutters carry higher hourly fee of course. Makerspaces like this do already exist in Columbus and they are pioneer for new Makerspaces in small neighborhoods. Startups of smaller makerspaces in neighborhoods like Linden would bridge the gap between the underemployed youth and highly skilled prototype and equipment designers who use the largest Makerspace in Columbus.

When a neighborhood has small Makerspace, the community will be well informed about the facilities and tools available to them in that Makerspace; and would also be educated of other services like the expensive 3D printers that are available in similar but larger Makerspace in their greater city.

Columbus Idea Foundry Project team are motivated by the, Columbus Idea Foundry, a large makerspace that locates near downtown Columbus. This makerspace, shown below, offers a wide array of equipment tools, and spaces for talented minds who want to build creative products including wood products, metal products and computer applications. Members who need assistance can reach volunteer and salaried instructors who have relevant expertise to offer help. The proposed “Linden Innovation Makerspace” is completely similar to the Columbus Idea Foundry but smaller in size.

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2 Ibid.

3 The largest Makespace on the Planet opens in Columbus. Accessed at www.techncrunch.com

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STATEMENT OF NEED This program is aimed to revitalize the vacant land, providing the new economic corridor, and make the financial empowerment that provides the new neighborhood hub that welcome every member to utilize. The program also helps to increase the level of engagement, understanding of the community, and provide the solutions to all kind of public affair issues that provides the better living environment to attract the investment for further construction. As more members participate in the program, community cohesion and socioeconomic improvement will transpire imperceptibly in the neighborhood.

The program will endeavor to curb the growing worry about the shortage of entrepreneurial skills and workforce in the city. It will serve as a one-stop shopping space for financial training, software training and the use of tools for production of equipment and services that individuals market for profit as their entrepreneurial outcome. Many, if not all, school age members do not have opportunities to utilize and understand the perfect use of mechanical tools; and this would call for initiatives to create training programs for machine use, tool use, and computer application for individuals who are unable to attend technical and community colleges for those programs.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION The makerspace program consists of series organizations that helps to provide the programs that increase the access to the physical tools within the collaborative community and welcome community members to engage in. It includes series of conducive spaces and tools such woodworks, metalworks, computer workstations that give community members the chance to enhance their skills. This opportunity will ultimately help the community to improve their socioeconomic status. Examples of a typical spaces and tools that would be available in this program as shown below:

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Woodworks These are spaces intended for people who are working on projects that involve with wood such as constructing tables, chairs, beds or other useful wood products.

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Metalworks These are spaces for people who are interested in doing projects that involve metal work such as home supplies and utensils made of metal and other useful metal products.

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Computer Workstations & Software Sets These workstations are needed for the use of the three very important software programs by technology and design oriented individuals. It will help them in research and development, graphic arts and computer aided designs.

These are the three software programs available to members. Individuals cannot buy on their own which also demand extensive training and instruction to master them. They are AutoCAD (computer Aided Design), Adobe Suite (InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, Publisher etc.) and ArcGIS which is used for research and mapping.

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Communal tools These are general mechanical tools like pliers, hammers, hacksaws etc. and soldering tools or any other tools for metal or wood work. Later in the project, more expensive tools such as 3D printers, laser cutters will be needed to purchase.

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Basically, the program will benefit members who participate in the training and production process. The participants will exposed to skills that prepare them for future jobs and entrepreneurial competence. The other community members who do not participate in the program will indirectly benefit from it, since the innovative products and revitalization ideas will definitely result in increase in economy and better urban infrastructure. At the end of the program, a talented member is expected to produce some products that could physically serve the community. But how much work could be done depends on the skills that community members have before and additional skills and services they acquired from this opportunity.

METHODOLOGY In order to spread a sense of community cohesion and pride, the Makerspace will start to engage in activities that cater for community culture change by disseminating information of how the neighborhood and its people can be made entrepreneurial. This can be done through public awareness programs that educate public about the opportunities that are available to them in this new Makerspace. The methods of initiating and implementing this makerspace will depend on the outcome of consultative meetings of community and other stakeholders. Public input will be

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very vital initial process to decide how to run the makerspace. The following administrative and managerial strategies will apply: Community or Government Support The management of this space will work tirelessly to attract the government attention and all stakeholders, including public and private partners involvement in the creation and implementation of this Makerspace. The initiative will start as community run facility that will reach out to the government and private philanthropies to heavily invest in it for the public purpose. Most particularly, technology institutions and development authorities citywide will be reached for grants that can be used for developing the education and training programs, purchasing advanced technological equipment such 3D printers and allowing the general public access to the numerous beneficial tools for their projects. As will be discussed below, there are two options to run the operation of this Makerspace as follow: Community-Run This is to make the make the Makerspace as an organization that funds itself through membership fees, community donations, private and public grants, and that is managed by board of directors from the community who will appoint an executive manager of the space. This will require extensive funding for rent payment, building small spaces within the Big Space, power, tools and other supplies. Without strong community participation and strong community awareness about the programs, funds that would suffice the running cost of the space may not be secured and other options like government-run spaces will be preferred.

City-Run Due to city grants available for promoting programs that tend to facilitate economic development, city-run Makerspace would only be a success. It will simply be embodied much like a library or city project that receives budget allocation by the city and managed by executives employed through the human resources department of the city. City-run Makerspaces can promote inter-city competition of producing competent entrepreneurial minds that can reflect the pride of the city.

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FACILITIES The community have numbers of the vacant land and abandoned space along Cleveland Avenue and East Hudson Street which could be used as the place to build the new makerspace center.

According to the vision and target of the makerspace program, the makerspace center should have the easy access to the neighborhood that encourage everyone to participate in the program.

In other words, the site where the makerspace center built should near the physical center of the community. Thus, the site at the of the crossing of Audrey Rd and Cleveland Avenue could be the ideal place for makerspace center construction. See the maps below.

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TIME FRAME This project is part of neighborhood planning studio that aims to expose graduate students to methods of equitable community revitalization and planning in a supportive community environment. This Makerspace is part of that studio, and it collaboratively augment other proposals from other teams in the studio. This proposal has gone through stages of community outreach, research, and stakeholders interview throughout a semester; and it is expected to get implemented in the next semester by other motivated students. The project will be completed in three phases as below: Phase1: participatory planning (January-February) From the approval of this proposal, this phase starts with project activities including community outreach, search for resources such as grants and donations. More importantly, public fundraising and seeking private and public grants will be of utmost importance. This is the period when the project implementers would be encouraged or discouraged by the amount of donations

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and grants they receive. They will proceed to the next phase of the project, only if they receive substantial attention and approval by the city of Columbus and/or private philanthropies and community members, not only with funding but with moral support too.

Phase2: Space and Equipment (February- March) Although it is challenging to get a vacant location and enough funding to build it, there are many other opportunities of securing a workable space such as renting small space in the local library or renting and maintaining an available rental unit in the neighborhood. In this stage too, the management will able to purchase and receive tools that cannot be bought by individual members in the community to use for their tasks. Everything, from table to tool will be put in place at this stage.

Phase3: Installation and opening (March- April) In this phase, all required equipment and tools, personnel, and space will be put into operation.

Rooms will be prepared, computer networks connected, software installed, tools readily displayed, tables prepared and volunteer instructors and other personnel recruited to fully make the Makerspace open for the community.

BUDGET (COST OR FINANCIAL PLAN) Currently, we are proposing few items that will demonstrate a fully functioning Makerspace that can be improved with time and budget depending on potential community desires and interests.

The following categories of goods are very important in the startup stage of the Makerspace, and although shopping prices are not precise, we made a price guesstimate to hint about the possible total funding required in such project.

Description

Quantity

Price ($)

Cost ($)

Computer Workstations

4

1000

4000

Woodwork Workstations

2

500

1000

Metalwork Workstations

2

500

1000

Communal Tool sets

6

600

3600

9

Software Sets

3

350

1050

Training Books and Supplies

----

2000

2000

Miscellaneous

----

5000

5000

Total

15, 650

CONCLUSION The makerspace program is the one that helps to increase the level of engagement, improve the skills, and increase the cohesion of the community. It solves the problems of vacant land and lots, empower the homeowners’ financial status, and even the lack of budget to solve the issue of public affairs. After the project is finished, it provides the community with the opportunity to gather all the members to share their efforts, thoughts and experience to better understand each other and the whole community. In future, the crime rate will reduce drastically since all the members are equipped with the skill to make money and they know the importance of increasing their financial status. All community members will learn the skills to make the real contribution to the community and have fun during the learning and making process. After all, they become more united that the sense of community brings them together as one community family.

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