USPS Publication Number 16300
T h is C o m mu n i t y N ewsp a p er is a pu bl ica t ion of E sca m bia / S a n t a Rosa B a r Assoc ia t ion
Se r v i ng t he Fi r st Jud icial Ci rcu it
Section A, Page 1
Vol. 19, No. 12
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March 20, 2019
1 Section, 8 Pages
A Space to Create by Will Isern • photos courtesy of Longhollow Creatives
On a Wednesday evening in mid-February, around 50 young professionals gathered in a 120-year-old building on Guillemard Street to celebrate the opening of Pensacola’s newest cowork and studio space, Longhollow Creatives. There was local beer on tap and the party spilled out onto the back lawn around picnic tables and a fire pit. Cowork spaces are not new in Pensacola, but Longhollow’s founders have sought to create a space uniquely catered to creative professionals and fresh startups. “It’s the kind of place I wish I had had when I was getting started,” said Steven Gray, one of Longhollow’s four founders. “We want to be a resource for people who really want to grow a business, who really want to develop themselves professionally. There’s a lot of hobbyists and we’re not opposed to helping them too, but we really want to focus in on stage-one startups, entrepreneurs and people who are trying to get a good business plan off the ground. So in trying to reach out to what we needed back in the day, I think we’ve really tapped into a need that other people feel.” The building is 700 N. Guillemard St, a historic twostory built around 1900 that originally served as horse stables for city firefighters. Today, with its ample natural light, sleek industrial styling and vintage-inspired decor the space is wholly modern, while still maintaining much of the historic charm of the building’s brick walls, timber support beams and cobblestone walkway the bisects the firstfloor work space. Upstairs is 1,000 square-
feet of wide-open studio space catering to photographers and videographers or just about anyone who can make use of a well-lit backdrop of historic brick. Desks at Longhollow run $400 month and provide a business mailing address, access to a meeting room and eight hours of studio time a month. Non-members can rent the studio for $200 for a halfday. Longhollow is the culmination of the vision of its four founders, Gray and his wife Annie and Cory and Rachel Hogue. All are Pensacola natives and graduates of the University of
looking for some office space. Then Gray, a photographer, was commissioned to photograph former mayoral candidate Drew Buchanan, who was leasing the Longhollow building at time. Buchanan had launched a cowork space of his own before entering the mayoral race, but was looking to get out of his lease as the campaign wound down. “I had been eyeing that building for six years but just didn’t think I was going to have the opportunity,” said Gray. “So it took some time but we got the meetings we need and we got in.” The team remodeled the bathrooms, built in a kitchen,
desk for added privacy. The response from the creative community has been quick. All the desks at Longhollow are already rented, and there’s a waiting list for the few more that Hogue is building. The upstairs studio has been booked extensively throughout January and February. The appeal of a cowork space over working from home, Rachel Hogue said, is the opportunity to set distractions aside and get feedback from trusted peers. “I think working from home can be great for a lot of people, but it can also be a distracting and lonely,” she said. “I think
Longhollow founders Rachel + Cory Hogue and Steven + Annie Gray
West Florida. Like so many business ventures, the idea for Longhollow was hatched over brunch between its founders. As all were freelancers at the time, they got tot talking about
brought in new furniture and Hogue built all the desks. They’ve got Perfect Plain beer on tap, cold-brew coffee in the fridge and local art on the walls. Soon they’ll install glass walls around the conference
people need to be near other people, especially creatives. For a project, sometimes you need to step away and something might be a little off and you just can’t put your finger on what it is, and you
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need someone there to look at it, so to have other creative you trust near you is invaluable.” Despite there being a number of other cowork spaces in Pensacola, Longhollow’s founders don’t see themselves as competitors, but rather as part of a network trying to drive innovation and create opportunities for young entrepreneurs. “Our focus on the creative side just aesthetically sets us apart, but thematically there’s several cowork spaces in town,” said Gray. “We’re very friendly with all of them and we’re trying to refer people back and forth. Say someone comes to us and says, ‘We love your building, but we’ve got a four-person team.’ That’s something we can’t accommodate but we can immediately refer them out to Cowork Annex or send them to interview at Co:Lab, so we’re very open about that.” Long term, Longhollow’s founders want their space to become a hub for professional development, hosting classes and professional training sessions. They believe the Longhollow district is ripe to become the bedrock of Pensacola’s professional creative community. “For us this started as just a place we could share with others we knew would enjoy it,” said Hogue. “I think success in the long run would be to open this entire district up as an arts district and we share that vision with the First City Arts Center just down the street. It’s prime to be the first location in Pensacola that’s a walking arts district. We can’t accomplish this goal by ourselves, but we hope to be a small piece of it.”
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