CityCoHo: 'green' coworking space hosts eco-friendly companies [photos]

The space is inside 2401 Walnut Street, an eight-story building whose $10.5 million makeover in 2011 included installing a green roof and a 17,500 gallon rainwater cistern. It's currently applying for LEED certification.

Drew Foulkes (left), cofounder of CityCoHo, and Matt Star, a Ruby developer who works out of the space, inside the space's reclaimed Catholic confessional booth.

Philly now has its own ‘green’-focused coworking space.

Currently in soft launch mode, CityCoHo is a two-floor, 13,000 square foot space that aims to create a community of sustainability professionals, said cofounder Drew Foulkes. Its first anchor tenant is the Delaware Valley Green Building Council, the local chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council.

The space is inside 2401 Walnut Street, an eight-story building whose $10.5 million makeover in 2011 included installing a green roof and a 17,500 gallon rainwater cistern. It’s currently applying for LEED certification. 2401 Walnut Street is also home to startups like Curalate, TicketLeap and LifeVest Health, as well as Wharton‘s summer startup incubator.

CityCoHo is holding an open house happy hour every Monday at 6:30.

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The space, which can fit about 100 people, was founded by Foulkes and Max Zahniser. Charles Block, who owns 2401 Walnut, is the CEO of the space, Foulkes said.

Foulkes, a Passyunk Square resident, previously ran business development for a Delaware County-based electronics recycling company called Green Technology Recycling.

Zahniser, a Graduate Hospital resident and Penn’s former director of sustainability, helped develop the LEED rating systems for green building at the U.S. Green Building Council. He now runs a nonprofit called Sustainability Nexus, which has partnered with CityCoHo.