Female-oriented coworking company RISE Collaborating is “unwinding” its business due to falling memberships following the most recent spike in Covid-19 cases.
The operator, which has locations in Denver and St. Louis, first opened its doors in April of 2019 and had expansion plans for the entire country.
However, CEO Stacy Taubman has announced that the pandemic has led the coworking operator to slow down its business. Now, RISE’s landlord the Kentro Group will take over its 11,000 square foot coworking space in Denver starting April 1.
RISE is one of a few women-focused coworking spaces that have hit hard times. Companies like The Riveter closed all of their spaces in June of 2020, but recently reentered the market with a new business model that will see it take up unoccupied space within hotels.
The pandemic’s impact on women, especially mothers, has been difficult and many have had to leave the workforce to handle child care responsibilities.
“Here’s the thing: I do think the way people work and socialize has changed dramatically. We know that women disproportionately are in charge of childcare, and this pandemic has been very difficult for women to handle that,” said Taubman.
During the early days of the pandemic, RISE attempted to address this issue by launching after-school programs, a digital platform, and even a medspa.
Prior to the Omicron wave of Covid, Taubman believed that the company could finally make a comeback.
“That was sort of the nail on the coffin. The writing was on the wall,” said Taubman. “We were running out of money–I didn’t feel like we were going to recover.”
This led Taubman to seek out support from Kentro in hopes of allowing the landlord to take over operations rather than completely shuttering its business.
Currently, RISE’s Denver location has 100 members, half the number of members seen in February 2020.
