Build Spaces?

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by Greg Hainsworth

Look for empty retail space. I recall one team (forgot the number) in the upper Midwest was able to get an agreement on empty space in a mall. The mall management company allowed them there for the cost of utilities. I guess the mall was able to take some deduction for allowing a non-profit in there. I think it was an empty Chuck E. Cheese or something. The space was big enough for them to set up a full field… I was so jealous.

That was team 2846, the Firebears.

My team has had several build spaces over the past 10 years. The first was a parent's garage. It wasn't too hard to keep organized, as all we really had when the season started was the KoP! After that, we moved into a closet in a building downtown that hosted an engineering coop we got to sponsor the team. We could haul stuff out of the closet into the coop after hours to do our work. That expanded during the season into paying very, very little for a couple of months to "rent" some empty office space on the second floor. Then the third floor the next year, and then back to the second floor... finally the school came in and signed an actual lease on a space, did a little renovation to bring it up to spec for us, and we moved in there semi-permanently. After 3 years in the renovated space, the school finally built a STEM center on campus that we moved into, and we'll probably be there forever