Our Hours
IndyHall has open office hours on Monday through Friday from 8:30am to 6pm.
Evenings are often scheduled for events, but that doesn’t mean workspace isn’t available if you call or write ahead for an appointment. Weekends are also available, by appointment only. We need to sleep and clean our houses sometime!
What We Offer
Independents Hall is a community of freelancers, independents, work-from-home people, who have an interest in getting out of their dull work day and participating in a community that’s designed to support and encourage people who make a living doing what they love.
We provide communication tools, events (social and educational), as well as a physical space to work and collaborate (now open!).
This space will provide:
- workspaces (desks, tables, chairs, and couches)
- broadband internet (wired and wireless)
- a conference room with professional conference amenities (boardroom table/chairs, digital projector, whiteboard)
- secure equipment storage
- a relaxing and stimulating environment to work
- a support group of interesting, smart, and talented people
- infinite organic networking opportunities
- and much, much more!
Where We Came From/Where Are We Going
Independents Hall is more than a coworking space, it’s a community of passionate, driven talent. What is coworking?
Coworking is cafe-like community/collaboration space for developers, writers and independents.
Or, it’s like this: start with a shared office and add cafe culture. Which is the opposite of most modern cafes.
The Team
Alex Hillman began evangelizing the coworking concept in the fall of 2006, but it wasnt until spring of 2007 that energy started circulating around the idea. At the right place, the right time, a group of people started forming around this concept of work-collaboration…some of the people were independents, freelancers, entrepreneurs, not only in the web scene but branching into other disciplines like writing and photography. Others participants were remote workers. Dubbed “Independents Hall”, this Philadelphia version of coworking went beyond the space…because the community came first.
In March of 2007, Geoff DiMasi of P’unk Avenue added a new brain to the mix. Geoff’s diverse background quickly became an asset to the growth of Independents Hall. With a background in education (UArts Multimedia Professor), community (founder and president of his local civic association), business (partner in a successful Philadelphia based design/development studio), and property management, Geoff brought a lot of practical, but still very creative, experience to the organization. After a couple of months of brainstorming together, and creating and running various events that helped get the local movement off to a well paced start, Alex and Geoff decided to officially create an LLC and run Independents Hall as a business, together.
In the final stages of creating the business agreement, it became clear that having a 3rd person to balance things out would be beneficial. Alex and Geoff approached community member Bart Mroz with an opportunity to join the team as a second full time office manager (like Alex), as well as be another independent voice and opinion to help lead the organization. The opening of IndyHall was just a few weeks before Bart’s 4th year as a work-from-home independent, so the transition from home office to shared office seemed natural. Bart’s involvement in the first 30 days of set up of the office was critical, from helping keep tasks organized to providing an entire home-office worth of equipment, having Bart as the day-to-day partner has been crucial to continuing growth and stability of the coworking hall.
With a grand opening that took place at the end of August 2007, Independents Hall took to Old City, Philadelphia by storm! We are open on the 2nd floor loft of 32 Strawberry Street (map).
For more information, stay tuned to the blog as well as the google group!
Our Inspiration
Taking lessons from previous and current ventures in coworking, Independents Hall seeks to extend the successes (and failures) of our predecessors. Working closely with the folks behind two very experimental locations in San Francisco, CitizenSpace and The Hat Factory, we seek to build a sustainable model that harbors some of the Utopian Community aspects of their renditions of coworking, while maintaining a business model that, along with carefully chosen partner-organizations, will allow the space to sustain (both fiscally and resourcefully) the community which it contains.
The exciting part about bringing this idea to Philadelphia is that historically, it makes sense. Early colonization of the United States took place here. Individual minds who had something to say got together, and made something incredible where prior, there was little more than land. Over the years, things like Benjamin Franklin’s Junto led groups towards the goal of self-improvement through improving their community. These ideas have existed in Philadelphia for a long time, and it’s time that we brought them back here and created a stir. P’unk Ave’s own Junto is held monthly, with topics that vary across a spectrum that can interest all kinds of new media, social media, and creative professionals.