Urban Co-Works continues to grow in Schenectady and beyond

SCHENECTADY — If you have to go to the office, isn’t it better to go somewhere you are welcomed each time you step off the elevator and through the doors?

Urban Co-Works may not be able to steal the moniker from the celebrated TV sitcom “Cheers,” where everyone knows your name, but you are always welcome at any of its three Northeast locations.

The coworking space, headquartered on Franklin Street in downtown Schenectady, has celebrated its third expansion inside the Franklin Building, resting at the corner of Jay Street.

Founder and CEO Jeff Goronkin embraced the idea of a hive of activity, with different entities sharing the same footprint.

Goronkin and partner Susan Bardack, CEO of Buzz Media, spent a year in the former Electric City Innovation Center before pursuing the opportunity to take over the State Street space in 2017.

He wasn’t done.

“I looked at the model and thought, 'This is great; I was looking for something scalable,” Goronkin said. “It was really challenging scaling Buzz Media because it's a service business. I was always fishing around to do something that's scalable, and this is that kind of model.”

Goronkin created Buzz Media with Bardack.

The Electric City Innovation Center then became Urban Co-Works.

“It had to be something that had global meaning — Urban Co-Works — you can take that anywhere,” Goronkin said. “I liked the environment that we operate in: walkable downtown communities, coffee shops outside, restaurants, theater.”

Even a pandemic couldn’t slow him down.

Spraragen Partners purchased 430 Franklin St. in March 2020. Their renovation plans were then slowed by the pandemic and other factors. As the area and the nation began to rebound, Goronkin found a new home.

“We hit capacity over there; we had no more room to grow, so we had to do something different,” Goronkin said. “I talked to Chris and Brooke Spraragen about this because they had already ripped off the façade of this building. They bought the building. They had no one except the National Guard. We committed to it, and it was great.”

With Simone’s Kitchen as a basement business anchor, Urban Co-Works now boasts 14,500 square feet after its third expansion. It serves more than 100 people, hosting 80 businesses in person through its available offices, coworking desks, day passes, meeting rooms and virtual mailing addresses.

Three is another magic number for Goronkin as Urban Co-Works now has locations in Schenectady, Holyoke, Massachusetts and Scranton, Pennsylvania.

The floor-to-ceiling office spaces include sliding glass doors for an open-air feel as businesses complete daily tasks and close larger deals, all within sight, if desired, or behind pull-down fabric shades.

The private offices are created on the perimeter of the workspace, with co-working desks within the configuration designed for work, refresh and even reset, with a reservation-available “Zen Room.”

Jovette Abbas, of Glenville, visits Urban Co-Works three to four times a week as an accountant with Marathon Ventures, LLC, a media sales company.

“I've been working remotely since right before COVID, so for me, mentally, I'm an extrovert; I needed to get out,” Abbas said, taking a break from another spreadsheet on a large computer screen linked to her laptop. “That structure of getting dressed, going to the office, the separation. This is the perfect space. It let me get that structure back into my schedule because work and home became one big blob, which I don't think is mentally healthy.”

Abbas was at another remote site before finding Urban Co-Works. When her company agreed to pay for a monthly co-working membership, she found a new home.

“It has all the makings of an office that you need,” Abbas said. “If you need a conference room, there's an app to book the conference room.”

Abbas said she booked time in the “Zen Room” for a break after staring at spreadsheets gave her a migraine. She booked it on the Urban Co-Works app, went inside, the lights dimmed, the wake-up alarm went off and she was back at her desk, fully refreshed.

Community Manager Brittany Crankshaw is often the welcoming face for the in-house businesses at Urban Co-Works, supporting clients and sharing in their successes.

“I had a man from New York City who was in the area and just needed a desk to work at for a little bit, make some phone calls, that sort of thing,” Crankshaw said. “You really get a fun mixture of people, and it's cool to see how all of them interact from a business perspective. We’ll be asked, ‘Do you know an accountant? We have one of those. We have lawyers and therapists; basically, we're our own little village.”

The Urban Co-Works "village" also has a global impact.

“Someone heard about us from Australia,” Crankshaw said. “Her brother-in-law is from Schenectady and said, 'Oh yeah, I've heard of this co-working space. So since you're in the area, you should stop by.’”

Goronkin, sitting at a picnic table atop Urban Co-Works on a sunny day in Schenectady, said the sky and the co-working spaces are unlimited.

“I have looked at the possibility of bringing on private equity or something, but it's not my thing,” Goronkin said.

“I enjoy what we have. I love our team. We're pretty solid, and I don't want to introduce something that's going to make it not what it is.

“It's intentional growth, and it's going after the markets that we think we're going to succeed in.”

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