The Harlem Garage is closing its doors on 28 June
The Harlem Garage co-working space has announced it is to close this month due to gentrification of the area. However, some members cite mismanagement as another reason for closure and others have claimed that its timings have resulted in its failure, as it did not offer a 24-hour service like competitor WeWork.  

The operator, Manhattan-based MicroOffice Solutions, says the site was too small to be profitable and now faces too much competition to continue.

“It’s hard to make money on a small space,” said David Rotbard, cofounder of MicroOffice, which has co-working sites in Chelsea and the Flatiron district. In February, he told members he could not cover his $21,000 monthly costs, including the $13,000 rent. In April, he announced he would let the lease expire at the end of June.

“We always knew it would not be great revenue,” Rotbard said. “We built it to help put Harlem on the map.” At its peak the garage had about 100 members, he said, including 40 to 50 who rented dedicated desks and another 50 who had daily or flex-pass memberships. The space had room for 150 members, including 70 at dedicated desks. He added that the problem wasn’t the occupancy rate but his costs, particularly for heating in the winter. Still, the space has incubated about 200 businesses, some of which, like real estate brokerage Harlem Properties, have since moved into their own spaces.

The Harlem Garage was one of 17 small-business incubators seeded by the Bloomberg and de Blasio administrations to build an entrepreneurial community in neighborhoods where business wasn’t investing.

MicroOffice received a three-year, $250,000 grant from the city’s Economic Development Corp., of which $214,000 was paid out. The money helped turn a one-story parking garage into a high-ceilinged, 5,000-square-foot space with exposed brick and natural light.

A dedicated desk cost $300 per month, with a 10% discount for women and minorities—a bargain compared with the $400 to $500 charged downtown. Entrepreneurs who flocked to the site had few complaints, other than about the occasional freezing temperatures in winter. “It was flexible, the open floor plan made it easy to collaborate and it was affordable,” said Naomi Hersson-Ringskog, co-founder of No Longer Empty, which turns vacant spaces into art exhibits. She rented four desks for the space’s first eight months, when she had a project in the area.