Company Culture
Office Trends

Here’s your 2019 guide to coworking in Delaware

Looking for a spot to work out of next year? From communal work spaces to flexible office spaces, here's what Delaware has to offer.

A group of volunteers gathered at The Mill to create some data. (Photo courtesy of Open Data Delaware)
When Wes Garnett, Pedro Moore and Steve Roettger started The coIN Loft nearly a decade ago, it was the first workspace of its kind in Delaware.

“No one [in Delaware] has even heard of coworking,” said Garnett, in a 2010 Technical.ly article. After a rocky start, coIN (short for “community innovation”) established itself on 9th Street in Wilmington. Although some think it no longer exists, coIN Loft survives to this day under its current name, Start It Up Delaware, located at 605 N. Market.

Today, coworking is big business, complete with global mega-chains like WeWork that exist outside of the Delaware bubble like Starbucks did, until just three years ago.

The number of non-traditional office spaces has grown, especially in New Castle County. (Sussex is currently without a coworking space – that we know of – since the demise of the short-lived Beach Desks in Rehoboth in 2016.

For this roundup, we’re including three several types of spaces: The communal coworking space, mini offices, incubators, and a couple that don’t fit neatly into any category, but are not traditional office spaces:

The Mill

Launched by Robert Hererra with the Buccini Pollin Group in 2016, The Mill has become a downtown fixture, located on the 4th floor of the Nemours Building. Members include Zip Code Wilmington, TrafficCast and The Tapp Network, and, as a bonus, it has use of Theatre N on the second floor. The Mill will launch its second location, The Mill Concord, in April 2019. The Wilmington North location will have two floors, including one devoted to private offices of various sizes. Also, major perk: free parking.

1313 Innovation

Dual School's second cohort at 1313 Innovation.

Startup incubation at 1313.

Located within The Hercules Building at 1313 Market Street in Wilmington, where two-story waterfalls and indoor plant life once filled the atrium, 1313 Innovation is less about excess and more about startup incubation. Founded in 2013 by Paul McConnell of McConnell Johnson Real Estate, the space is home to several University of Delaware Horn Program alums, including Carvertise, AndAgain and GeoSwap, and is the home base of the Dual School program.

The Hub @ 1201

Delaware business reporters convened for a Tech Talk panel at the Hub

Companies and sole proprietors are the key demographic of this space.

1201 N Orange Street, also known as One Commerce Center, is a multi-use building housing traditional offices (including IncNow), virtual office services, residences, and The Hub, Stat International’s coworking space. Unlike The Mill, with its free beer and startup culture, The Hub’s demographic is companies and sole proprietors looking for small private offices.

Regus

Delaware doesn’t have WeWork, but we do have Regus – a multinational company offering pay-as-you-go “hot desking” and long-term desk leasing at the Brandywine Building in downtown Wilmington and Christiana Corporate Center in suburban Newark.

Emerging Enterprise Center

Gear up for the EEC's Small Business Owner's Boot Camp.

At EEC’s Small Business Owner’s Boot Camp.

The New Castle County Chamber of Commerce offers small business incubators, including low cost startup office space, mentorships, seminars and other amenities. Located on the Riverfront at 920 Justison Street, the EEC has several different packages, depending on how much acceleration you need.

Kent County Emerging Enterprise Development Center

The second floor of the Kent County Levy Court Building will soon house startups.

The second floor of the Kent County Levy Court Building will soon house startups.

Also known as KCEEDC (say that ten times fast), this incubator and coworking space is located with the Kent County Levy Court building in Dover – and is one of the few spaces of its kind below the canal.

Middletown Business Incubator

Also located below the canal, but still in New Castle County, is the Middletown Business Incubator & Collaborative Workspace, or MBI, launched in 2015 with support from the Middletown Area Chamber of Commerce (MACC) Foundation. Located on North Cass near Main Street, the incubator accommodates up to 15 small businesses.

Delaware Innovation Space

Founded by the University of Delaware and DuPont with support from the State of Delaware, Delaware Innovation Space is a collaborative lab space that give biotech entrepreneurs access to top facilities and peer scientists. In 2017, Nemours Hospital for Children moved its Biomedical Research to the location at DuPont’s well-known Experimental Station campus.

Delaware Technology Park

Launched in October 2016, Delaware Technology Park, known as DTP, is a wet lab incubator located on the 272-acre site of the old Chrysler assembly plant in Newark now known as University of Delaware’s Science Technology and Advanced Research (STAR) Campus. Residents include the Green Line Business Group, mTrigger and AcroBiosystems.

University Office Plaza

university office plaza

University Office Plaza wants to be a key startup hub for Newark.

Just off of I-95 in Newark you’ll find an unassuming office park with flex leasing plan for growing companies.

Delaware BioDome

The Delaware Bio BioDome.

Take a meeting at the BioDome.

Think of BioDome on the Astra Zeneca campus on Route 202 as DelawareBio’s collaborative space for meetings, seminars and networking. It’s not a space to keep a desk, so much as an alternative to Brew Ha Ha for meeting clients and giving presentations.

NextFab

NextFab signage in Wilmington.

NextFab signage in Wilmington.

The Philly-based makerspace opened its Wilmington location in the Creative District in 2017. Members can take classes and have access to a high-tech wood shop, 3D printers, laser cutters and a robotics lab to create product prototypes and do creative work.

RH Gallery

While an art gallery may seem out of place among the tech incubators and wet labs, the Hockessin-based RH Gallery is also a coworking space for artist entrepreneurs to create and built businesses in the art world.

_

Did we miss anyone? Let us know about coworking hubs and other non-traditional work spaces here.

This editorial article is a part of Technical.ly's Office Trends month.

Companies: The Mill / 1313 Innovation

Before you go...

Please consider supporting Technical.ly to keep our independent journalism strong. Unlike most business-focused media outlets, we don’t have a paywall. Instead, we count on your personal and organizational support.

3 ways to support our work:
  • Contribute to the Journalism Fund. Charitable giving ensures our information remains free and accessible for residents to discover workforce programs and entrepreneurship pathways. This includes philanthropic grants and individual tax-deductible donations from readers like you.
  • Use our Preferred Partners. Our directory of vetted providers offers high-quality recommendations for services our readers need, and each referral supports our journalism.
  • Use our services. If you need entrepreneurs and tech leaders to buy your services, are seeking technologists to hire or want more professionals to know about your ecosystem, Technical.ly has the biggest and most engaged audience in the mid-Atlantic. We help companies tell their stories and answer big questions to meet and serve our community.
The journalism fund Preferred partners Our services
Engagement

Join our growing Slack community

Join 5,000 tech professionals and entrepreneurs in our community Slack today!

Trending

The person charged in the UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting had a ton of tech connections

From rejection to innovation: How I built a tool to beat AI hiring algorithms at their own game

Where are the country’s most vibrant tech and startup communities?

The looming TikTok ban doesn’t strike financial fear into the hearts of creators — it’s community they’re worried about

Technically Media