A meeting will be held later this month to explore the option of a Des Moines-based company looking to expand its services to Greene County.

Gravitate Coworking is the largest coworking organization in Iowa, with two locations in downtown Des Moines and Valley Junction, that hosts over 1,000 people in its coworking environments. Gravitate Co-Founder Geoff Wood started the company in 2013 working with freelancers, entrepreneurs, and remote workers in Des Moines, before expanding in 2017 to Valley Junction.

The community meeting will be held on Tuesday, June 25th at 6pm at the Thomas Jefferson Gardens Education and Welcome Center in Jefferson. Greene County resident Chris Deal is working with Wood to host the meeting. Deal says a coworking space is a shared work space.

“They have access to office amenities. They have access to meeting rooms (and) conference rooms. It’s great for people who work remotely (or who) work from home. It’s great for people who may have their own business but they don’t have a place to hold a professional meeting if they have clients coming into town.”

Deal says this was a trend that started in the urban areas, but there’s already a need for a coworking space in rural areas like Greene County. But he believes having a company like Gravitate locate in Greene County could lead to even bigger solutions.

“Now we can really advocate that we’ve got a wonderful community, we got a great place for someone to raise a family, and we’ve got a space that’s set up specifically for someone who can come and work remotely, or if they want to come and start their own business.”

The meeting will cover how coworking spaces work and how Gravitate operates their locations. There will also be a question and answer period following the initial presentation.