Hi! I’m looking to join the Plano space, and think I have some skills that I’m willing to teach could enrich the space.
I’m an experienced leathersmith, metal sculptor, welder, artist, motorcycle mechanic.
I have my own equipment, and tools, and would like to join asap.
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Greetings! Nice set of skills there!
The various Makerspaces around the metroplex are all independent. We are in Carrollton, the lab use to be in Plano but recently moved to Richardson.
I’d highly suggest stopping by tomorrow morning for Saturday tours and see what all we have to offer.
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We are one of the largest in the country and have 24/7 access so you really do need to come see it, a friend who recently joined said the makerspace he was a member of was about the size of our machine shop
As far as I know… we are the largest volunteer run community Makerspace in the world.
The few that I came across that were larger fell either into “for profit” typically with employees, or it was like a joined Makerspace with half of it rented out to either storage or coworking space.
Regardless… 36,000 sqft is Makervanna.
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The others that boast they are larger are places like Universities where every student is a “member”. Our membership reflects dues paying members directly supporting DMS.
I personally do not know of any Maker Spaces that have membership above 500 that do not have at least one employee. We only contract out professional services such as: Bookkeeping, Legal, and Cleaning. Few Maker Spaces, For or Non-Profit are open 24/7. In some ways we are a Unicorn.
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We are indeed!
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It’s rare that I comment on threads like these, but after I have looked around, I think maybe I should.
I will honestly state that the only reason I am still in Texas is because of Dallas Makerspace.
The value and importance of a Makerspace like ours is unprecedented.
I have looked at going back to my home area and the first thing I look at is any of the makerspaces in those areas.
I have looked and toured some of the makerspaces in Chicago, Nashville, Louisville and even Columbus and they pale, horribly, in comparison what has been built here.
Don’t even get me onto the couple that I have looked at and been to in NYC.
We, as a whole, are one of a kind.
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Not for long. My old makerspace (Nova Labs) in Fairfax, VA near DC just bought a 40,000 square foot building. They recently moved into the building, so they’re in the process of doing their build-out now that they’ve relocated all the equipment from the old makerspace location. It will still be a couple years until they surpass us though because of their buildout and a business that still has a lease on part of the building. It will happen though. They’re a volunteer run non-profit with 24/7 access just like DMS. Both makerspaces are very similar. They’re just really good at getting big monetary donations from big corporations. 
They also don’t have as big a membership as DMS. At this point, they might be past the 500 number though. They were in the high 200’s when I moved here in 2018. They have different membership tiers, so I don’t know what their numbers are. I’ll have to ask one of my friends there. 
Even if their numbers have grown substantially, DMS is still only 1/3 of the price for an equal level of membership.
So when I was deciding on what city to move to when I decided to leave DC, the #1 requirement was a large makerspace. I would only look at cities that had big makerspaces. Then when buying my house here, my requirement was that I lived no farther than a 20 minute drive from the makerspace. I wouldn’t even look at a house if it was over 20 minutes away from DMS. 
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Close to work or close to the Makerspace - tough choice.