‘It’s like a whole other village in here’
Redevelopment of old school building to include cafe, yoga and co-working space
Over the past few decades, local businessman Ted Harrison has passed 314 S. Guadalupe thousands of times on his way to work. Nearly 50 years ago, the Pueblo Revivalstyle building not far from the Railyard District was a Catholic elementary school.
The building has been used on and off for other operations but for the past three years has been empty. Harrison became intrigued by the mysterious historical structure with tall ceilings and its large windows that bring in scores of light. He saw its vacancy as a missed opportunity.
With his latest project to redevelop the building, Harrison hopes to bring back its status as a “well-loved and fully engaging” social center like it was when it was a place of learning.
“This building should be a community gathering place, as it served in its original function as a school,” he said.
“This was a center for the community, certainly the Catholic community. It was vibrant; full of kids and parents and teachers, nuns, and (it was) in relationship with the church. As it moved into its subsequent uses, the opportunity was lost to maintain that community connection.”
The project, Common Ground, is intended to be a place where people can both work and play. The 8,300-squarefoot facility will include a cafe serving indoors and an outdoor patio space, two yoga studios, a seasonal ice cream stand and a backyard area with spaces for bocce ball and bean bag games.
About half of the building’s usable space will be configured into a co-working space for rent to local businesses and entrepreneurs.
As the co-working ideas grows in metropolitan areas across the country, Harrison said he wanted to bring a “neighborhood-based” model to Santa Fe.
“It felt like there could be an opportunity for an interesting mix of people, activities, learning, social engagement and professional development,” he said of the space.
The Archdiocese of Santa Fe still owns the building at the corner of Guadalupe and Agua Fria. It was built in 1926 as a parochial school for the nearby Our Lady of Guadalupe church, according to archdiocese archivist Bernadette Lucero. The school, which mostly took on classes up to sixth grade, closed in 1969.
Since then, the archdiocese has leased it out as office space and, until about three years ago, it was used as a furniture store.
Common Ground is scheduled to open in three phases. The cafe is set to start operations in early May, the yoga studios by June 1, and the co-working offices and desk spaces by late June.
With a 25-year lease from the archdiocese, this is Harrison’s first venture into building a retail-type facility. He has been the president and founder of Commonweal Conservancy, a preservation organization that has aimed to protect the Galisteo Basin Preserve, since 2003 and is on the board of the Santa Fe Community Foundation. Before Commonweal Conservancy, he held various leadership positions with the Trust for Public Lands.
Common Ground’s yoga studios, which will take up about 25 percent of the building, will be operated by YogaSource, a local business with locations on San Mateo and Early Street.
Co-owner Wendelin Scott said the business will be leaving its Early Street spot for Common Ground.
Scott said YogaSource’s owners and teachers were looking for ways to expand as the business hit its 10-year mark this year, and the Common Ground location between downtown and the Railyard makes for an exciting move. She also likes being in a facility that she described as its own “ecosystem,” full of community businesses.
“It’s like a whole other village in here,” she said while visiting the space last week.
Harrison couldn’t say who will be operating the cafe in Common Ground, as the owners are being “protective” about making their own announcement. But he described the business as “a very successful, much loved cafe operator that has multiple locations in Santa Fe.”
The co-working space, called Co-Fe, lines the perimeter of the building in a horseshoe-like design. Harrison says the idea was to give users access to the building’s large windows and natural light.
The space includes 10 private offices that range from 45 to 72 square feet for single-person or two-people operations and one 200-square-foot private office meant for a three- or four-person team.
Almost all of the private offices don’t have fully enclosing walls, which Harrison said leaves renters connected to the rest of the building. There are also 10 “dedicated desks” in a shared open space under a set-up that still allows renters to keep belongings there. In addition, there are 15 “open seat” spaces where people can work in lounge chairs or library-table-like spaces.
The co-working configuration also includes conference room areas, small rooms in which renters can take phone calls, a kitchen for coffee and snacks, printing services and other amenities. Co-Fe has a one gigabit fiber broadband internet connection, which he said provides the renters with some of the fastest internet in town.
Renters can have a workspace they can use if they want peace and quiet, or they can head out to the cafe or patio if they’re looking for a more social experience. In both scenarios, they can connect with others in the building.
“Folks are often left to work out of their home or work in cafes and the distraction, the noise, the lack of infrastructure can be a challenge for people to do really good work. And it can be isolating,” said Harrison. At Co-Fe, “You can be operating alone together.”
“This is an opportunity to almost curate a community that has a mix of skills and interest. By their choice of joining the co-work space, they’re signaling an intention to work differently than many other independent workers. They’re choosing to be in relationship with one another hopefully to be able to leverage one another’s skills and relationships and also build new relationships.”
Several offices and spaces have already been reserved on a word-of-mouth basis to organizations and individuals in the nonprofit sector, software design and arts and media disciplines, Harrison said.