Just completed the report-back from the joint meeting of sudo room, bay area public school and counter-culture labs. Here's a quick summary:
Bay
Area Public School definitely prefers to stay where they are (on the
current floor) and would love to take over the entire floor with CCL and
sudo room.
sudo room is interested in staying and
taking over the entire floor, if we can make some agreement that ensures
that we have to deal with George a lot less. sudo room is also open to
the possibility of finding a new space, possibly with the public school
and or CCL. sudo room is not willing to move very far away from BART.
Counter Culture Labs
is probably long term more interested in getting a bigger and more
industrial space with more permissible zoning, but they are interested
in taking over sudo room's current space as their bootstrap location,
with the same stipulations as sudo room regarding the landlord
situation.
Financially, CCL can at least pay what sudo
room is paying now ($1500 + utilities). sudo room would need to move to
the bigger space at the other end of the common room, which may be
stretching sudo room's finances if only sudo room is paying for it.
Public school felt like they couldn't pay that much more than they
currently are paying, but also said that it might be possible to get
more financial support by creating a big "joint space relaunch" and
riding the momentum to get more interest. I think this would be a great
idea for all three groups!
Other groups that may be interested:
A member of the public school expressed interest in starting a yoga
studio in the small wood-floored room, but wouldn't be able to
immediately afford the full rent. Matt suggested that we get more groups
that use the space once a week or more and then split the cost between
them, basically subleasing it as dance/yoga/other recurring event space.
Berkeley Biolabs may be willing to rent one of the small rooms, but
that would probably require putting in plumbing. Unfortunately it
doesn't seem like a simple proposition.
The next step
should be for someone to approach George and get an offer for the
entire common room + offices (possibly not including the corner office).
We can then present that to the three+ groups, devise a way for us to
split the costs and space, and make a counter-offer. This could
potentially get resolved in 1-2 weeks if we move quickly.
Who's willing to talk to George about this scenario? Matt?
Let me know if I accidentally mis-represented something.
--
Marc