NextFab makerspace could be key to Wilmington's future

Brace yourselves, woodworking hobbyists, professional artists and budding entrepreneurs.

After more than a year of delays, the Philadelphia-based makerspace NextFab will finally open its doors near Wilmington's West Center City neighborhood on Thursday.

"I'm so excited to get in there," said Jason Aviles, a 33-year-old yoga instructor, entrepreneur and nonprofit director who lives nearby. "I can't wait to take these concepts I have and manifest them using the supplies, expertise and environment that are being made available to us here."

Often described as a gym for innovators, NextFab is part trendy co-working space and part high school shop class.

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The 10,000-square-foot space at 503 N. Tattnall St. is outfitted with dozens of tools ranging from bandsaws and lathes to laser engravers with a retail price that would rival most luxury cars.

In exchange for a monthly membership fee, anyone can gain access to the equipment, along with classes on how they can be used to make your own coffee table, fidget spinner or Father's Day nightlight.

But the biggest project for NextFab may be to help rebuild the city it now calls home.

Located in a neighborhood marked by blight and violence, the company is being looked to as a linchpin for Mayor Mike Purzycki's effort to "stabilize" West Center City, the Wilmington Renaissance Corp.'s long-running attempt to build a thriving Creative District and even Gov. John Carney's vision for an entrepreneurial economy.

The company's ability to assist with those efforts helped NextFab land a $350,000 taxpayer grant from the Delaware Economic Development Office in late 2015 – funding that was contingent on its ability to open a Wilmington location and maintain 120 members for three years.

"Sure, there's a certain amount of pressure to perform," NextFab President Evan Malone said Wednesday.

"But I think people want us to succeed," he said. "We're good at what we do, and there will be real economic activity that comes out of this, so I'm not too worried."

Malone first launched NextFab in West Philadelphia amid the Great Recession. The company not only survived the economic downturn but eventually flourished and now occupies two locations in the City of Brotherly Love with 700 members between them.

Carrie Gray, the Wilmington Renaissance Corp.'s managing director, said she first toured NextFab in 2013 and immediately saw its potential for the Wilmington Creative District, a public-private partnership then in its infancy.

"Little did (Evan) know the courtship, and frankly stalking, that would begin," she said.

Today, the Creative District includes a handful of murals, a public arts garden and the first of what will be 12 homes at Fourth and Washington streets built by Interfaith Community Housing and marketed to artists and makers.

Barrel of Makers – the city's first organized collective of painters, woodworkers, glass blowers, engineers, computer programmers and 3-D printer builders – also has been offering programs at the William "Hicks" Anderson Community Center on Madison Street.

Gray said the goal is to eventually seed an artists' colony from West Center City to Market Street, anchored by sites such as NextFab.

"Having something like Nextfab really helps to round out our ecosystem here in Wilmington," she said. "We see this as a huge step forward."

Malone said he had hoped for NextFab to arrive earlier, but the arrival was delayed by the process of selecting the right location. An initial 3,500-square-foot site at Eighth and West streets was abandoned in favor of the current site – a long-vacant photography studio with considerably more space.

NextFab was worth the wait, said Purzycki, who hailed the business as a magnet for young people looking to "exercise their creative ability and enjoy Wilmington."

The neighborhood has been a magnet for violence. The four-block radius around NextFab's new location has been the site of seven shootings in 2017, including two homicides.

"We're going to have lots of flood lighting and security cameras outside," Malone said. "We've also got a buddy system worked out to be sure our customers and safe are not leaving in the evening hours without supervision."

The company's arrival also comes less than a month after the mayor unveiled his "neighborhood stabilization program" for West Center Center, which he promised would include a greater police presence, increased trash pickup and a crackdown on nuisance properties.

"We are going to build this community and make this community safe," Purzycki said during a ribbon-cutting for the business on Wednesday.

He added that the redevelopment effort also would require jobs, and with them, an effort to provide job skills to community residents – skills they can now learn at NextFab.

"Your city stands ready to embrace you," Purzycki told the business. "We're thrilled to have you."

Yet some residents, such as Amira Idris, are hoping NextFab can help provide them with more than a job. She's hoping it helps her build a company.

After earning a master's degree in entrepreneurship from the University of Delaware last year, the 24-year-old founder of Vibrating Therapeutic Apparel was accepted into a 12-week business accelerator program at NextFab in Philadelphia, a crash course in product development that also came with a $25,000 investment.

This month, she signed on to be the first tenant in one of the half-dozen office spaces on the second floor of NextFab's new Wilmington location. There, she hopes to turn her design for a sleeve that relieves phantom limb pain into a final product.

"NextFab has been so wonderful in moving my company along, but I was getting tired of commuting to Philly," she said. "I'm so glad these resources are now available a little closer to home."

Carney said he hopes other entrepreneurs from the University of Delaware make a similar to move to Wilmington, either to NextFab or one of the city's co-working spaces.

"The point of all this is to bring young folks into our city, to bring their talents and cultivate them so they stay here and help us grow our city in very positive ways," he said. "I couldn't be more excited."

Aviles, the co-founder of the artist co-working space Artist Ave Station at Eighth and Tatnall streets, said his excitement is a little different – perhaps even verging on nervousness.

"I'm actually not a builder," he said, despite having landed a free two-month membership.

"I'm kind of like intimidated slightly by it," he said. "But at the same time, I'm excited because I know I'm about to learn and NextFab is going to teach me."

Contact business reporter Scott Goss at (302) 324-2281, sgoss@delawareonline.com or on Twitter @ScottGossDel.