Atrium coworking space is exceeding expectations of creator

By Holly Campbell | WANE

A coworking space in downtown Fort Wayne is exceeding expectations in the first five months it has been open.

Some of the business owners have been with the Atrium from the beginning.

“Since day one I have been a member,” Brandon Smitz, owner of Social Rocket Co, said.

Others just recently got on board.

“Just two weeks,” Eley Software Consulting owner Kamal Eley said.

No matter who you ask at the Atrium on Berry Street, they’ll all tell you it’s better than working from home or in a coffee shop.

“I enjoyed working in those areas, but they provided a lot of distractions, so coming here it afforded me an opportunity to still work and stay focused on what I was working on,” Eley said.

“I needed a place to work that didn’t have my very young children who are at home during the day,” Smitz said. “It affords me the ability to focus here and there’s a great community of other entrepreneurs.”

It’s a community that continues to grow. The four person and two person offices have sold out. There is now a waiting list of people waiting to grab the next open space.

“We’re at just around 80 members right now in the space on any given day we’ll probably have 10 or 15 people at different peak times,” Start Fort Wayne President Dave Sanders said.

Smitz has noticed the changing environment over the months.

“The diversity of what people are doing in here is continually changing and improving,” Smitz said.

Sanders said bringing the area’s best and brightest together is what makes co-working spaces so special.

“We’ve had several cases already in our space where two people sitting across the table from each other and one will contract the other for a project or vice versa, or they’ll get advice, work together on a company and all those different types of things,” Smitz said. “That’s exactly what we were going for.”

Eley said he’s glad he took the jump and became a member of the Atrium.

“I was a little reluctant, but I decided to pull the trigger and to try it out and it’s been a great experience thus far,” Eley said.

There are other membership options still available. To learn more about those options and prices click here.