We sort of lucked into our old build space. One of our mentors knew a guy that ran an Engineering Co-op - essentially a machine shop with an attached office area that small companies and startups would rent office space from and get access to the shop. We got them on board with sponsoring the team with free after-hours access to the machine shop. They introduced us to the building manager (they were on the first floor of a 5 story building in St. Paul), who had a big empty room on the second floor - the room had no carpet, no heat, and barely usable lighting. We got in there really cheap (probably 10% of what she could charge for the room) for the build season.
To make a long story short, we moved around in the building for a couple of years, squatting for real cheap in whatever large space was available during the build season, and working out of a large closet in the off season. Finally the school came in and signed a formal lease with the building manager (I think the school ended up paying full price) and renovating one of the rooms for us.
Now there's a brand new STEM Center at the school that we had a lot of input in, and the team has fully moved in there, leaving our old space empty. We're trying to find a local team that wants in there, but I think you're a little too far away to make that work
