Business & Tech

Co-Working Space To Debut This Spring in Water Mill

Ari Meisel hopes to create a place where like-minded professionals can share resources and provide mutual promotion.

The Water Mill Ateliers will soon be home to an innovative work space — the first of its kind on the East End — geared toward professionals looking for a work desk without all the headache of keeping an office.

Ari Meisel, a Sagaponack resident who runs Meisel Development, which built the state-of-the-art, LEED commercial and residential complex about five years ago, is behind the project at 903 Montauk Hwy. in Water Mill. He is taking over the west building to turn it into "The Atelier," which is French for "workshop."

The plan calls for 40 desks in the open, 3,000-square-foot space where freelancers, small business owners, and corporate employees can gather, create, and produce, he said.

Similar concepts are popping up in Europe and in major American cities, and Meisel hopes to open the workshop in March or April.

Rather than provide offices, The Atelier will sell memberships for desks. "You can sit at any desk you want," Meisel said. "I'm meeting a lot of people out here who just want a desk," he said. "This allows for the flexibility, and it's much cheaper. There's nothing like this out here."

A membership runs $400 to $700 per month depending on the time of year and length of time chosen. Only 50 memberships will be sold the first year.

Lockers will be available to those who need to secure their equipment or files. There will be a conference room and phone boothes to allow for private conversations, but they are meant to be more "short term spaces," he said.

Through the new workspace, he hopes to form an entrepreneurial, small business community where like-minded people can also share resources and provide mutual promotion.

Meisel created LessDoing, a productivity system as a way for him to limit his stress and manage his Crohn's Disease. "This was a way of dealing with the daily stresses of life by optimizing, automating, and outsourcing all of my tasks in life and business. Now I focus on Achievement Architecture, helping individuals be more effective at everything and advising several companies," he writes on his website.

A co-working space helps create that efficient modality, he added. Workshops are planned for the space, as well.

He will publish a book on the subject in April.

Those interested in the space may visit http://atelier.launchrock.com/.


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