I'm here in downtown South Bend now, recently on Experience Michiana.

I was here to talk about Idea Week because one of the residents here is in charge of putting that on, but I thought we should really get to know what's happening here at momentum.

So I'm here with Chris, who's the founder and CEO.

Chris, tell me what momentum actually is.

So momentum is a spot for people who are founders, entrepreneurs, remote workers to have a space of community, awesome co-working space, awesome amenities, and really just a place in South Bend for to to work and collaborate together.

What was here in this building before.

So since it was built in the.

I think was the 1950s.

The Salvation Army was the occupant.

They moved out in 2018 and it was vacant since 2018.

Oh, wow.

So it was just part of like kind of rejuvenating downtown South Bend as well.

Absolutely.

And so in this space with founders and smaller businesses, it's pretty tough.

Like a lot of people over the last six years since Covid start working from home.

So is it hard to get people back out into a place like this?

So we actually started the project around 2020 when everyone was like, oh, like everyone's closing their coworking spaces.

But we thought there was if you have the right amenities and the right mix of people and the right culture, people want to drive.

And I think that was really important when we started to see, like, what would make someone drive 25 minutes to come down here when they could just work at home, like most of the people here do not need to come into work.

And so the mix of, again, the people and the amenities and the nice things that we created was so that we always had that in mind of like, what would make you pay for an extra office space and drive 20 minutes?

It's the lack of children in the background screaming at you.

I think that's what it is.

Are the wife asking you, can you just do this one now?

I'm just kidding.

But let's go inside and have a look.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thanks.

So with this space, I mean, what does it look like before and what have you done with it now?

I mean, it must have taken a lot of work.

Yeah.

So this was essentially like warehouse space.

So it had concrete ceilings and floors.

We actually cut out this atrium ourselves.

There were a lot of old offices, old like dorm rooms, but a lot of it was just like, you had to have a vision when you came in here because it was it was not in good shape.

How do you take on something like that?

And did you ever consider a slide because or at least a fireman pole.

So so we had a we actually took from one of the old firehouses some stairs that they were getting rid of.

We put it outside in our loading dock and someone stole it, but we wanted to have a spiral staircase from the first floor to lower level.

So we did think of that.

My question was a slide, but okay.

I mean, you know, if you want to go along with the stairs, that seems like a normal way, you know?

But no, I get it.

And again, it's such a welcoming environment when you come in here.

And I know even with snacks and coffee, like, that's all included when people decide to be tenants.

Yeah.

And what we tried to do was we both not only visited the other locations in South Bend, the people could have office space but also visit other cities, just like what were they doing in their spots, like so not only like the best co-working spaces, but also like, what's a club feel like that?

Hey, I can go there.

I don't have to worry about all the other things.

It's all taken care of for me.

All right.

I want to see, because I know you've got a couple of levels here.

So up here you've got some bigger offices.

And we were here for Idea Week, which they're obviously one of your big clients, the organization that puts that on.

So tell me about the kind of people, as you mentioned, that are here.

Is that mostly non-profits or for profits?

I would say it's a mix.

We not only have a lot of like nonprofits and not a lot of founders.

We have a lot of engineers.

We have a number of remote workers.

But I would say that's when we started.

We knew it couldn't be just for startup founders because we don't enough density in South Bend, Elkhart to do that.

And so but all these other people wanted the same thing.

They wanted it nice, they wanted offices, they wanted a nice coffee bar.

So I think that also like as we just had lunch today, there's a nice eclectic group of people that you wouldn't ordinarily run into.

And if they were all engineers or they're all founders, like, it would actually be pretty boring conversation.

Hey, now you're right.

But you mentioned that today.

Like, I mean, you had a lunch here where you put on food for people.

Why does that matter?

When to the culture.

Yeah.

So like one of the things that from the beginning.

So we used to hold happy hours before we opened the building just in like some of the like in the warehouse space, sometimes in other buildings because we wanted there to be people to get together that, that a lot of our people work by themselves.

And so what would make you a little bit less lonely?

A little bit like going out to be more folks.

And people really liked going to those.

And we think, you know, this is the point is not just make this an office space.

It is like the culture that people are really interested in as well.

I mean, being a former radio guy, one of my favorite things is that you have a podcast studio, so I want to check that out.

Yeah.

So absolutely.

Now I'm here with Chris.

Chris, what's it like being South?

Ben's most eligible bachelor.

It's it's a lot of pressure.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, you know, I get it.

I used to hold it and then I got married, so.

No, but this is cool.

I mean, this is available to your members, right?

Like, because obviously we've got video equipment here too.

So having this kind of space, why was it important to have this for for a lot of the people.

Yeah.

Like, again, we wanted to do what other people either weren't spending time on or what they thought was just like a waste of money as an amenity.

And we're like, well, you know, my friends and I wanted to podcast.

We actually never had done it before.

And some of our friends are podcast producers.

So we thought, oh, it would be great to have that space in here.

And we've actually had like in the last couple of weeks, some awesome people come through.

So we had an Olympian recorded a podcast in here.

Ray and Wilson was here a couple weeks ago from the office.

So it's become like it's a tight little space, but like, people really like it.

Like, we spent a lot of thought and time on making sure that it was something that it wasn't just a hobby.

Like if people were doing as professionally, like this could be a spot for them to.

Absolutely.

And it's a great way for people to reach their audience.

Right, right now.

And, and so we're going to go somewhere next.

I'm more likely to want to use this room than the one we're going to see next.

But but I know that staying in shape and fitness is also, you know, when you're burning the candle at both ends.

Right?

You got to it's important.

And yeah, happy to take you on a tour of the gym as well.

Chris, before we go in there, I don't want to make this weird, okay?

But I use this restroom before I came up to you.

This is the thickest paper.

The investment alone in this paper, like this is the highest quality.

This is better than a five star hotel paper.

We just knew we wanted everything to be really high quality.

All the way down to the paper towel.

All right, I'm gonna need this going in here.

So was this part of the research of going to other places, finding, or was this just a no brainer for you?

So partly was this is actually what used to be the darkest spot of the building.

We're like, what are we going to put in there?

It's like like we didn't think we could rent it as like an office.

And so I think we visited a place in Chicago and it was a building that had they were sharing building amenities with other things that were being rented.

It was a co-working space, and they had a gym and were like, oh, like what?

Like, of course we should put a gym and you're now you're not going to be a bodybuilder coming here.

But we have treadmills, we have bikes, we have ellipticals, we have some free weights, and we also have showers.

So that way you don't even have to go home and towel service.

So we just thought like, what would make you be able to come in the morning and not really need to leave?

And we thought a gym would be a great addition to that.

But again, just the sheer cost of all this stuff.

I mean, are you okay?

Yes, yes.

No.

But I always think about that.

And I talk a lot to entrepreneurs and founders about that because again, oh, we have a space.

Let's turn it into a gym.

Okay.

But like, you know, 30 grand later or whatever, you're really close.

But, you know, it's like and that's a big investment.

It is.

And it's like, again, when we thought about what would make you come here, what would make your friend, you know, it's not everyone, everybody uses the gym.

But for the folks who do, it's like, hey, I don't need to go and have another membership somewhere else.

So like, people can think about that in terms of their membership for our space is like, I don't need a gym membership.

We also have coffee.

So I'm not going to Starbucks every morning and we have a bar.

So like, I can it's just like from from 7 a.m.

to 7 p.m.. You can stay here.

That sounds nice.

I wish I was allowed to with two young kids, but and let's have a look at some of the different offices because I know there's lots of options to you.

So I know that some of the offices upstairs are bigger.

Many people can be in any of these offices.

Are they from 1 to 5 or how does that work?

Yeah.

So most of the offices right now we have between one and like four people.

So when we originally did our research it was kind of we had to guess of like based on what already existed in the market.

So there's a lot of office space where you can fit ten, 15, 20 people.

There wasn't anything that we saw where you could fit like a one person office where you'd have to pay for all those extra expenses yourself.

So like when you have an office here, you're just paying the office rent.

You're not paying your own electricity, you're not paying your own internet.

You're not paying for all those, like the trash and recycling.

Like we take care of all that.

And I don't think there's another spot in South Bend that does that for you.

And so when we when we went to other cities and they had all these and were like, well, let's lean towards the side of smaller offices with again, we might expand to have bigger ones on the second floor.

But for right now it's like we've had a good mix.

I think we're down to mostly one person offices, and I know that even outside of that, there's an option where you don't actually have an office, but you can come in and work from this space.

Yeah.

So there's actually a lot of folks who are coworking members, so they can just come in every day, either 24 over seven or 8 to 5, and then they have an opportunity to just find a little nook, find a table, and they can just work for the day.

And they don't have a dedicated office space.

But again, it's still like amazing, especially price wise.

And I shouldn't give away.

You probably have to change your Wi-Fi password.

I won't give the exact, but I do like that the Wi-Fi password is no more Panera wisely, because again, before this, a lot of people were just going to local cafes and restaurants and working, and this is obviously a much better space.

And like with all those little things, we tried to make it like a fun experience because we wanted to surprise and delight.

So all the different things we do is not just to be like, no one here wants a boring corporate job.

And so we wanted to create a little bit of fun with everything we do.

I love it, I absolutely love it.

I think it's great.

And again, what's invaluable to is the fact that it's not just about the space or the internet or the trash removal.

It's about the fact that, like even today, I bumped into somebody and they work with the nonprofits and I work with nonprofits, and it's like, and all of a sudden, like that human connection.

Yeah.

And we really wanted like those, those like productive collisions or those those like when we originally were doing like lunches and happy hours, we actually wouldn't have any programing.

It was like the goal was just to get different people to interact with each other and hope that something cool comes out of it.

And so I think that's a perfect example, like what what we set out to do.

And finally, I won't be allowed to go to this because I have an eight week old and an almost three year old, but there is a bar in here that opens at 4:00.

So I think we should go have a look at that.

Absolutely.

So tell me a little bit about this space and this bar.

How long has momentum actually been here and then how long is this bar actually yeah.

So we had our soft soft opening in June of last year, June of 2025, where we let our early adopters in construction was still going on.

There's a lot of noise.

We actually might make t shirts that say part of the noise, because we've had so much disruption for the people who moved in.

And the bar actually then opened about mid September.

So, right, we did a ribbon cutting for that momentum, September I think 15th, and we opened the bar a couple days later.

And so is this separately run by an outside company?

Yeah.

So so there's a couple of us owners that own the bar.

Then Navarre Hospitality Group actually runs the bar, and it's open to the public at 4:00 Monday through Saturday.

Would you consider opening it around 11 for people with a young family or.

No.

Or lunchtime?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Hey, lunchtime.

Happy hour.

There you go.

But again, there's this space.

Why is this important to have this here?

So when we thought about, again, what do people want.

How do we create those productive collisions?

Or how if you were meeting with an investor or potential client, where would you want to go at 4:00?

And we're like, oh, this was a sunken in.

It was originally a loading dock.

We thought, oh, we could put a bar there.

And then once someone said that it never strayed from that idea.

And it is true, like people will come here.

It's a nice quiet bar to, like, have a meeting at 4:00.

At 5:00?

It's a different vibe from like 4 to 7 than it is from like 8 to 11.

But it's also it's also a bar that's open to the public.

You don't have to be.

Absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely.

So anyone from the public can come in at 4:00 every day.

So with this space, as we were walking through, I noticed.

And when we did the interview for Idea Week, that was in one of the conference, the meeting rooms.

But you do have a variety of meeting rooms, two including this one.

Yeah.

So this was actually where we had the idea week launch party.

So it looks very different than it did about two weeks ago.

But back here we do co-working space, but also we've done dinners, we've done cocktail hours, we've had panel discussions, we've had workshops.

So the point back here is we didn't want anything like so specific that we couldn't make it like like movable.

So we call it the collaboration space because there's so many different reasons that people might use the space back here.

But the primary is co-working.

But then we also do a lot of other events as well.

And again, there are meeting rooms for ten people for six weeks.

I mean, there's small and we did that intentionally.

So we actually have one person phone booth.

So like if you want to take a call by yourself.

But then we also have meeting rooms for four people all the way up to 14, because as we saw in other cities, if they were all the same and they were all standard, like there's a lot of wasted space.

And so, you know, there's a boardroom that can fit 14 to 16 people.

But then we also have these chips for people hop in the huddle room, and then it's a lot quieter and a lot less space being used.

I love it.

Look, as somebody who is a business owner now and I'm very conservative about how I do things, even, you know, I spent my first two years with a $200 laptop, even though I could afford them because I'm just.

But to take on all this, like the chairs, the tables, like the the whole thing, you know, it's it's a big undertaking and it's something that you should feel really proud.

Thank you so much.

Yeah.

We you know, we had a vision early on and we stuck to it like a lot as all the amenities you see, all the finishes you see like we tried to be true to the design and also true to the vision that we had.

And we're really proud of what we've created here.

All right, well, maybe the next time we meet, you won't be an eligible bachelor.

And I'm just kidding.

I'm sorry that I made that even a thing in this video, but thank you so much for showing me around.

Thank you for taking the leap along with the other people and just doing it and creating a space for people.

I think that matters in life, you know?

So a good job.

Yeah.

Thank you.

And I would say this was definitely a partnership with like the city of South Bend, the South Bend, Elkhart Regional Partnership, the DEA, they were all helped participate to make this thing happen.

And we're really appreciative of all of them.

And is it momentum?

SB is that the is the website.

That's where people can find information about coworking memberships, offices.

You can even, I think, find some information about renting the space for an event or going to the events that we host as well.

Sweet.

Thanks.

Yeah, absolutely.