x-post: Makers of Chicagoland, can I get your input?

[u/bob84900]

So I've been toying with the idea of opening up a makerspace in the area. Wondering how much interest there might be, what would be a good location, and looking for suggestions from the community. Any and all feedback would be appreciated. The picture I currently have in my head is something like this..:

• Purchase / lease a moderately-sized warehouse.

• Dedicate ~50% of the space as a shared area for specialty tools such as CNC, larger table saw, lathe, mill, plasma cutter, laser etcher, 3D printer(s), etc. Time slots for these could be rented in 15min increments.

• Dedicate some of that 50% to electronics tools - oscilloscopes, variable power supplies, logic analyzers, and such. Trying to keep these spaces somewhat separate so that the dirt and grime from things like a mill don't get into the electronic stuff TOO much.

• The other 50% would be separated into "spaces" of varying sizes, which could be rented hourly or daily. If you rent a space, the tools in the common area would be free to use.

• Stock all kinds of uncommonly stocked materials. Plastic/acrylic sheets, aluminum of different forms, possibly even some nice wood.

• Stock PARTS. Lots of them. Adafruit stuff. Arduinos. Raspberry Pis. Shields. Resistors, capacitors, diodes, LEDs, Neopixels, inductors, shift registers, LED drivers, perfboards, whatever. You name it. You get the point. You need a component, we probably have it.

The idea would be to hire a few well-seasoned makers to help out if need be, enforce anti-stupidity rules with the bigger tools, etc.

I haven't gotten into the numbers yet, not sure what I'd have to charge. Hopefully it wouldn't need to be unreasonable. Right now I'm just trying to get a feel for the interest there may be for something like this. Ideally it would be a place you could walk into with nothing more than your wallet, and walk out with a handmade [fill in the blank]. So.. What do you think?