Brian and Bonnie Watson are on a mission to spark connection throughout rural Colorado with their rapidly expanding coworking company, Alt Space.

The company has grown from one location to five over the past year. Their first space opened in October 2020 in Telluride, where the couple lives.

“It purely came out of a necessity from the pandemic; we just got tired of working out of our kitchen with horrible WiFi, being shoulder-to-shoulder, dealing with the animals and just being in the house constantly,” Bonnie says.

Brian is a co-founder of Proximity Space, a software company that powers coworking spaces globally, and Bonnie is the director of the Telluride Venture Network, where she works with rural entrepreneurs. When Alt Space’s Telluride location filled up immediately with remote workers who felt the same way as Bonnie and Brian, the Watsons saw an opportunity that they were perfectly positioned for — expansion across the Western Slope.

In May 2021, Alt Space purchased three more coworking locations in Ridgway, Montrose and Grand Junction from Proximity Space, which was looking to sell its brick-and-mortar locations in order to focus on its software services. Three months later, Alt Space took over 750 Main Street, formerly Factory, in Grand Junction as its fifth coworking location on the Western Slope.

“Having a high-quality place that you can go to work and compartmentalize your life and your work has been really important,” Brian says. “People need flexibility, and they want to be able to travel and work regionally, not just in one location, so that’s what we’re trying to do with Alt.”

Alt Space is the first ever fully-automated coworking space. Simply purchase a pass on their website, download the Proximity app and enjoy access to all five locations across Western Colorado. The self-service model allows Alt Space to create stability during the current labor shortage and cater to what they believe is a change in consumer behavior to self-service.

The goal of Alt Space isn’t just to provide high speed internet and a place to work; it’s about building community and turning Western Colorado into a regional network.

“By nature, Brian and I are ecosystem builders. We are trying to connect rural resources to rural people,” Bonnie explains. “Our spaces serve as nodes in that network as a physical meeting space for people from Grand Junction to Telluride to come together. The bigger idea is to connect remote workers and entrepreneurs with the tools, resources, people and places that they really need to thrive.”

“What we believe is that if we can raise the entire region and connect and work together, the whole tide of the region is going to rise,” Brian adds. “If you’re working remotely or looking to get plugged in and involved in Western Colorado, there’s really no better place than Alt Space.”

To learn more about Alt Space, visit altspacecowork.com.

Originally published in the Winter 2021-22 issue of Spoke+Blossom.

Alt Space Coworking Grows To Five Locations Across Western Colorado