Click here for Part I & Part II

Providing space for Delaware’s upstart business community

Robert Herrera is co-founder of The Mill, a coworking space in Wilmington, Delaware. Finished in 2015, The Mill provides working areas, fast internet connections, and other local benefits to small businesses, startups, freelancers, and remote teams. Members can buy 24/7 access to desks or private offices, and can book conference rooms of various sizes. Tenants include Aztec Exchange, Bifferato, Fair Square Lending, Tapp Network, Sports Challenge Leadership Academy, and many more. Robert, the project’s lead architect, previously worked at international architecture firm Perkins Eastman. The Mill opened its doors in April 2016 and membership filled up almost immediately; another stage of construction is currently underway.

Robert Herrera spoke with citybizlist publisher Edwin Warfield for this interview.

EDWIN WARFIELD: What trends are you seeing in the coworking sector, and who else is doing it really well?

ROBERT HERRERA: The reality is that in the development world, in the office space world, gone are the days of the Mad Men-sized offices, where you have an office that’s huge for one person to sit around. My office is literally two feet by one foot, and I flip it open and I can work from anywhere in the world, so I don’t need that. So, the big corporate guys, the banks, your huge health service companies, they’re laying off people by the hundreds; office spaces are downsizing; and if you don’t believe me, ask any office developer across the country—they will tell you that this is the case. These are the guys that are begging for this sort of model because they’re seeing this trend happening before anybody else is. They’re the canary, if you will. That’s where this started becoming more and more relevant, stopped being little kids in the collaborative space having good ideas—is that the office world started grabbing hold of it and saying, “Please, we want that kind of thing.” And then it started getting more exciting when people were trying it out.

One of the first that I was familiar with: there was one out on the West Coast at that point but there was a company called Green Desk, which was a really, really early mover in Brooklyn. Two young guys, as the story goes—as I’m told—built it in an abandoned warehouse or a rundown location with a developer, and the developer since bought them out. With that, they started WeWork, and WeWork has really set the tone and the model for this being successful and growing quickly, but there’s been a ton out there that have been successful, not successful, gone after this round, focused on arts, focused on this, and I think it’s an exciting time because they’re going to continue to grow and evolve.

In terms of who’s the coolest out there now—to be honest, I’m not one who keeps up with every competitor out there, every market out there. Actually, watching Sam from Dogfish Head as an inspiration—talk about looking at inspiration on your front doorstep—he purposely does not watch any of his other competitors in that space of beer, right? They’re all too busy watching him because he is doing crazy collaborations with the Grateful Dead, or a pickling company, or a sausage company for that matter, or whomever. He does such amazingly creative things. I like to focus on my company, my innovation, and what we’re going to do differently, and not watching people just to simply do it different but listening to the clientele and what they need, what they experience, how they do, what they want, what they want to do differently. For example, we’re already developing new roles and things that I would have never thought of myself, just by listening to our members and what’s their day-to-day struggle: What can we provide you to make it easier? Do you need a sound booth room? What would be cooler? Is it walking desks that you can exercise on while you type? I don’t know. It’s different for every location, too.

Q. Are you looking to expand what you’ve done with The Mill into other cities?

A. I think we’re going to cautiously move into other cities. I am very careful—I think the world has gone mad in some respects, with people trying to scale above all else and losing sense of their quality. Particularly in that space, I think that in co-working spaces, there’s a very tangible local community aspect that makes one successful and another one not, but there’s a beautiful scale aspect too where you can connect freelancers across the world. Both appeal to me but I think we are going to scale in a very pointed, directed, and meaningful way. So yes, to answer your question: yes, we are looking to grow.

Connect with Robert on LinkedIn

ABOUT NEWMARK GRUBB KNIGHT FRANK

Newmark Grubb Knight Frank (NGKF) is one of the world's leading commercial real estate advisory firms. Together with London-based partner Knight Frank and independently-owned offices, NGKF’s 12,800 professionals operate from more than 370 offices in established and emerging property markets on six continents.

With roots dating back to 1929, NGKF’s strong foundation makes it one of the most trusted names in commercial real estate. NGKF’s full-service platform comprises BGC’s real estate services segment, offering commercial real estate tenants, landlords, investors and developers a wide range of services including leasing; capital markets services, including investment sales, debt placement, appraisal, and valuation services; commercial mortgage brokerage services; as well as corporate advisory services, consulting, project and development management, and property and corporate facilities management services. For further information, visit www.ngkf.com.

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Edwin Warfield, CEO of citybizlist, conducts the CEO Interviews.

If you're interested in reaching CEOs, please contact edwin.warfield@citybuzz.co

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