I agree with this wholeheartedly.19,20
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I’d prefer we had members pay for ALL project storage (but not the small personal storage). Ditch half of the pallet storage areas and make folks pay for the rest and increase the space for hand woodworking, etc.
FWIW, I have no storage at DMS, so I don’t have a dog in this fight.
As a price-point comparison, I am also a member of the much smaller Fort Collins Creator Hub in Colorado. They offer co-working space and have had some uptake on them. These are work areas with 4’ high walls separating them. No Cages, no special electrical runs.
Sizes and prices vary from 8’x8’ tp 10’x10’. Price for a 10x10 is $200/month, with a three month minimum and a discount for annual payment. This is for a makerspace with perhaps 50 members and a fraction of the tool functionality that the DMS has available.
As I recall ,the spaces they’ve rented have been taken up by a metal sculptor, a custom skateboard deck startup, and others, but not by individuals looking for storage for personal projects.
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What I’m hearing from this discussion is that the creation of “rentable workspaces” are likely to appeal to commercial users, not to our typical “maker members.”
The purpose of doing this would be more about using excess space to help fund the overall space for regular members, to keep their dues low and allow us to have the flexibility to reclaim this extra space should we later choose to expand into it. (similar to subleasing a portion of the new space to a 3rd party company for storage until we’re ready to use it)
There are likely people who would never consider joining today because they need a “place to keep their stuff.” They would jump at the chance to set up shop in a 24x7 location that has many tools available. $300 might even be a bargain to them. Are there similar places where people can rent studio space in the area?
Providing “below-market subsidized” spaces for existing members really wouldn’t be fair to the other members either, and the prices charged should definitely be in excess of the actual cost of the space, up to what the market will bear.
Personally I think it would be a disservice to membership if the board didn’t try to get some additional income from any unused space, as long as the use didn’t interfere or cause issues with the current membership. Constructing 4’ ply walls to separate the spaces and create some definition would also be cheap and easy.
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I would pay for project storage (At a reasonable rate), but I doubt I would ever pay for work space. I have never been able to claim a project storage space. They have all been full since I joined, or the single space I found was too small for my needs (18" wide with a need for 24").
I feel that renting out the extra space as described above would mostly appeal to commercial “members or entities” and seems to go against the space’s rules of not operating a business out of the space.
If we are going to be hurting that much for extra money with renting the property next door, I would encourage we adjust dues, market to raise membership, and/or charge reasonable rates for project storage. I imagine there are other ways we can put that extra space to use, and possibly even make some money off of it.
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A space that someone could use for a project that is perpetually on the free project storeage would open up said spot if we had the paid option.
We would need to be more strict on the policies of free project storage extensions, like if someone was taking up two large spots on the pallet racks for 4 months (that’s 3 extensions) they should probably be turned down for the next extension and told they are abusing the free spots.
This of course opens us up to accusations of favoritism, and then not giving extensions to push people towards paying. Which would quickly burn out the chairperson
Charging a fee after x amount of time could be a solution for freeing up storage space, for instance storage is free for the first month but then $20/mo (again as an example) after that it would encourage people to finish their projects or move them. It could even be scaling, the longer you leave it there the more it would cost you. Is there currently a ceiling on how many extensions one can be granted?
Depends on the current chairperson and how well you can roll on charisma. Then add your clout bonus/debuff.
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We don’t have any such explicit rules. One such rule was proposed for Board members and board-appointed Officers (i.e. President, Secretary, Treasurer) at the last board meeting, but it did not pass.
Otherwise, here are the rules on commercial use:
Commercial Use
- The Dallas Makerspace is based on open source ideals and thus encourages its membership to embrace those ideals as well, however members reserve the rights to all of their creations.
- DMS may invoice members for incurring costs to DMS significantly in excess of their monthly dues. Determination of excess to be submitted by Committee Chairs and the member billed by resolution of the Board.
The first rule has been around as long as I’ve been a member (2015). The second was added simply to deal with egregious cases; I’m not familiar with any invoices presented to members via Board resolution under this provision.
The issue with strict project storage rules is that of administrative burden that scales with the strictness. And by ‘administrative burden’ I essentially mean ‘shlepping infringing projects to the penalty box and/or dumpster’ and ‘Members contesting published policy with the Logistics Committee’.
Automation is desperately needed to both reduce this burden, deliver consistency to all users, and produce some hard data on usage patterns.
I will emphatically agree that project storage is a prime contributor to Logistics Committee Chair/member burnout.
During my tenure the first 3 months were free, the subsequent 3 months were subject to scrutiny, and at 6 months it was leaving the facility one way or another. Criteria for the last 3 months were essentially how successful you were at convincing the Logistics Chair that you were putting real time in on the project and were likely to remove it under your own initiative.
I can’t speak to how it’s been implemented in the ~13 months since I stepped down as Logistics chair.
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It’s not 300 it’s 900 because you’re imposing a minimum. At that point you’re charging like a craft guild not a makerspace. Amenities offered for that price aren’t commiserate. I’d also look at grad school space structures. I know UNT monetized by leasing offices within their labs
Edited…for example if I’m paying 900 a month aND my primary area I like to use is metal shop I expect my bay to be IN metal so I don’t have to schlep to my favorite tools. Perhaps in fired arts I lease a private wheel or something. Maybe instead of cubicles we can do premium storage/tools.
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Ste 104, current location is 16, 575 gross sf, 102 is 19,425 net sf
In this discussion of storage and individual workspace, where do we consider those for whom it is less of a convenience, more of a necessity? I’m thinking of members whose mobility is significantly impaired. We do have members in wheelchairs or who use assistance like a cane.
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I think we need to be thinking about storage in 2 different ways.
The first one is “general member project/supply storage.” This serves to provide a convenience to members so that they don’t have to constantly move their project and supplies to and from the space while working on it.
The second is “Workplace and or more extensive personal storage” that would provide more extensive storage for larger items, more items, and/or a dedicated workspace."
I absolutely believe that the first is needed - and especially needed for those who have limited mobility. We should even reserve some of our storage spaces at ground level for those people exclusively. I also believe that low cost/free storage is a very nice amenity for general members. BUT, I believe that usage needs to be tightly regulated/monitored so that everyone can participate in using a limited resource. That includes a limit on time that you get a storage space, an effective queue that allocates available space to the next in line (a right of first refusal queue for new spaces) and rapidly increasing fees if you continue to need to keep the space for a longer time. (you could get in line for the next available space, and if one is available, you get it for free again).
The 2nd type for larger space rental is only if we have the unused space available and we want to use it to raise funds to benefit the larger membership. I’m not so concerned about the impact of those users on the overall space or tool usage. They could just as easily be members not renting space heavily using the tools too. The committees should have policies/procedures/methods in place to deal with “excessive usage” by members and should be able to deal with it as they see fit. For example, nothing says they couldn’t decide that “usage of tool X is allowed for Y hours/month, but anything beyond that should be paid at $Z/hr.”
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On the $300/space… since it doesn’t actually matter how many "no"s there are, and only that there are enough "yes"s that would actually pay the money to make it viable… (which is probably why Robert was asking at that price point specifically rather than taking suggestions on what the price should be… we don’t want to be at Public Storage’s rates, because we will then be in Public Storage’s business and will quickly see Public Storage’s usage percentages for that allocated space – which could easily take up all our new space, which I doubt we want! We probably want mid-%usage, and low average continuous months of usage, where PS is going for high and high. Our pricing needs to be higher, because if the desired feature-set for the shopper in question is what PS provides they need to go to PS and should not want to consider us as an option.)
The 'wee MakerSpace in south-Dallas-ish(?) rents out 20x20 spaces in this way, IIRC – but you get power hookups, and you can put (and work on) a car in there. Pricing is around $200/mo, I think. I’m thinking of joining up just to do an auto project that I don’t want to tie a bay up for for a couple of days straight; I’d certainly pay more than that for similar amenities plus the proximity to DMS Auto (and air conditioning!).
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