PelotonLabs Says Goodbye

The West End coworking space that WEN called home for a decade is closing.

Presente! Maine will take over the lease at 795 Congress Street.

“Every time you make a connection between two people, you throw out this little filament, like a little cobweb. And when you do that thousands of times, it builds a trampoline that you can bounce on. It’s really powerful.”

-Liz Trice, founder PelotonLabs

By Tony Zeli

Some 2,000 people have made potentially 10,000 connections through PelotonLabs. One of those thousands of people was me. I started at Peloton about 10 years ago, a little before I took over editing and publishing The News. Sadly, I must report that as of February 29th, the West End’s largest coworking space closed its doors as a membership-based workspace. Fortunately, Presente! Maine, the new master tenant, will use the space to further their mission to empower displaced Afro/Indigenous and Latinx peoples of Maine.

The journey of taking over and building The West End News into what is today would have been very different without my time at PelotonLabs. Through Peloton, I had an affordable, community-oriented workspace where I met future contributors, readers, and friends. Working at PelotonLabs was a transformative experience, not just for me, but for hundreds of entrepreneurs, remote workers, organizations, startups, and others.

MAKING NOISE

Liz Trice started PelotonLabs with developer Peter Bass, who took a parcel of land at Bramhall Square with a burnt down restaurant on it and built a contemporary office building. At the time, it was the largest coworking space in Portland. Coworking for entrepreneurs and remote workers was still a new idea in Maine. Even when I started working there a few years later, it was common for people to ask me what a coworking space was. PelotonLabs was a part of changing that.

“I always wanted there to be space for people to make noise and be community oriented,” Liz told me, “and to be a place where you would come when you were struggling with something… I wanted it to be your comfortable second home.”

SNACK TIME

“If you counted snack time, we probably hosted eight to ten events per week. These were moments for people to connect… to meet somebody new and bring whatever challenges you were working on that day and get feedback from others.”

Snack time for adults may sound a bit silly, but it was a popular afternoon activity for years at PelotonLabs. The ambassador – a member leader who served as a community host in exchange for practically free use of the space – would set out fruit and cheese, some salty snacks, and maybe even some chocolates around 2:30 p.m. Anyone available could stop by for a mid-afternoon pick up. More importantly, it was a chance to share our challenges of the day.

It was at snack time one day many years ago, when I sat down and was asked if I had any challenges. I was looking for more diversity in my writer pool. At the time, WEN writers were mostly men. Sitting next to me was Nancy Dorrans who said, “Well, I’m a woman and I might be interested in writing.” She has written a travel column for WEN ever since.

PELOTON COMMUNITY

“I came [to PelotonLabs] starting a new business and I had no idea what I was doing,” shared Nancy at PelotonLab’s goodbye party. “But I was ready to volunteer and help, and Maine Startup and Create Week was happening around the same time. So, I said [to Liz], ‘Can I help you with this big event?’ And she said, ‘No- No, you need to participate.’”

“One of the things I was most excited about were the three Startup Weekends,” said Liz, “which became the beginning of Maine Startup and Create Week, which then became Maine Accelerates Growth, and then the Roux Institute picked up what they are doing – what they now call Start Summits. But it’s the same idea. One-to-two-day hack-a-thons where people can come in with whatever business ideas they have or ideas to solve community problems and work with teams of people they met at the event to make it happen.”

BRAMHALL SQUARE

PeltonLabs gave back to the neighborhood’s places, too. Bramhall Square was often maligned by neighbors with its steep sidewalks and lack of green space or public art. Liz began hanging winter lights in the trees – on Peloton’s budget. Also, she helped organize a community piano in the square. In return, Peloton members had to wheel the piano inside every evening and back out every morning.

Later, Liz partnered with the Portland Society of Architecture to host a Bramhall Square design contest. One day, artist Chris Miller’s giant polar bear will transform the square. Maine Medical Center offered $100,000 to rebuild the square, matched by $150,000 from the City. The City has chosen a landscape architecture firm and the Historic Preservation Board has approved the design.

UP NEXT

Liz Trice will be focusing on her role as a partner at Maine Cooperative Development Partners, which currently has four workforce housing projects under development. She also wants to work to utilize ADUs in people’s backyards to increase housing in the city.

On PelotonLabs closing, Liz had to say this: “Because people who are seeking out community are usually making changes in their lives it means that things are constantly changing – there is always going to be turnover and a need for rejuvenation. And so, it makes sense that different communities are being built at different times and different people are leading those efforts.”

The West End News is moving into a new office at a coworking space down the road, Think Tank at 533 Congress Street. We’ll be sharing an office with Nancy Dorrans and her travel business, Adventure Marketplace. Our new mailing address is: The West End News, P.O. Box 10876, Portland, ME 04102.

Tony Zeli is publisher and editor. He was a coworking member, ambassador, snack preparer, and piano mover at PelotonLabs. Contact him at thewestendnews@gmail.com.

Liz Trice is a volunteer contributor to WEN. Read her monthly interview, PelotonPosts.