In my experience, nowhere was this more true than City Builders Lab. Around every corner, you might find new inspiration, a solution to an old problem, a collaborator, or just a friend. He had 30% of the building rented out to them, and had put so much money into restoring it for them. “The owner had rented out to a big Dot Com, and they went down. “That’s how we bought 215 Spadina,” says Margie of her company’s second building, the first home of the Centre for Social Innovation. Everyone told her that she could make millions if only she would focus on Dot Com tenants. Margie compares her approach at 401 to the real estate trend that emerged during the Dot Com bubble of the early 2000s. Whereas if it’s really diverse, other things can take over, and one blight won’t destroy the whole forest.” If you’ve got a monoculture in a city or a building, it’s very susceptible to problems. “Diversity is really important in natural ecosystems, as well as in city systems,” she tells me, echoing the words of her close family friend, the late Jane Jacobs. Margie Zeidler, president and founder of Urbanspace Property Group, has made a point of cultivating this rich mixture of uses since she first purchased the building in 1994. The offices and studios above and below the first floor also host an ecosystem of tenants: artists, artisans, designers, consultants, architects, developers, tech companies, magazines, a maintenance contractor, a green energy co-op, a dance studio, a therapist, and nonprofits of all stripes. The ecology of 401 Richmond extends beyond the natural kind, though. If you wander through the warren of corridors on the fourth floor, you may even stumble across a room-sized bird cage. Plants cover every sunlit surface and fill every available pocket: desks, floors, a lush courtyard and roof garden, even stacked rows of planters under UV lights in the middle of the hallway. Busy galleries, shops, a daycare, and a café keep the first floor buzzing with people. Often referred to as “a village in a box,” 401 Richmond is a colocating space that pulsates with life. The coworking space that I called home for the next year was City Builders Lab, located in the heart of 401 Richmond St W in Toronto, Canada. I had no idea the gift that had been dropped in my lap. I knew that coworking meant sharing an office and equipment with other organizations and individuals, and that colocating meant sharing a building and its resources with a mix of tenants, but that was just about it. Today, coworking and colocating have become hallmarks of the geography of innovation in cities, but at that time, in 2011, I had only heard whispers about these models. My first real job after graduating from the Ontario College of Art & Design wasn’t a job at all.
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