UpStart Knoxville moves to new location, doubles to 5,600 square feet
(EDITOR’S NOTE: UpStart Knoxville is holding an open house at its new digs today from 4 to 5 p.m.)
By Tom Ballard, Chief Alliance Officer, PYA
UpStart Knoxville has picked-up stakes and moved a few miles east to more spacious and updated quarters.
Knoxville’s only grassroots-based co-working community had been located at 110 Centerpark Drive since its opening in early 2017. Just before this year’s Fourth of July holiday, the tenants upped and moved to Suite 140, 408 North Cedar Bluff Road.
“We’re taking another gamble,” Jeff Gotcher, one of UpStart Knoxville’s Co-Founders, says. It’s the same sort of gamble, albeit on a larger scale, he and Michael Goldsborough took when they leased 900 square feet in the former location. They quickly doubled that space and expanded a third time to 2,700 square feet.
This new location is 5,600 square feet and is able to facilitate the needs of Upstart’s growing community. “Michael and I saw it as an opportunity to expand because our members’ companies have been growing,” Gotcher explained. “We still want to run it as a community, because it’s vital to Knoxville’s entrepreneurship ecosystem.”
All of the tenants at the Centerpark Drive location moved to the new space in a multi-story office building just off Cedar Bluff Road at the intersection best known for a Waffle House and a Pilot station. Those tenants include Resque (Goldsborough and Gotcher), Reviewbox (James Horey), CTS Software (Bryan Foster), Your Growth Expert (Jason Hubbard), Storage Pug (Matt Huddleston and Tommy Nguyen), Medic Apps (Laura Odom and Gotcher), Entreos (Preston Garland), MyLuxury (Jeremiah Barnett), 10 Thousand Windows (Jeremy Flloyd) and Right Click Designs (Nguyen).
“We have space for more people, especially co-workers,” Gotcher says. That includes three private offices still available plus a much larger area that will provide space for both dedicated desks along with “hot desks.” Upstart has changed their structure to a membership based structure, but the costs of offices are still based on square footage.
Companies that want to have a presence in the community can secure space for $600 plus a month. A “hot desk” in the “bullpen”– one assigned to a specific individual – is $250 a month. Those who want to be a part of the community without an assigned office or “hot desk” pay $150 a month. There’s also a virtual membership that provides a mailing address for $50 per month.
All community members also now have access to a conference room. And, of course, there’s a kitchen, the beer tap, copier, high-speed internet, ping pong table, nap room, and gigabit internet.
