I'll document our steps, maybe it can be of use to you if you would like to build a similar thing, or you have good advice for us, because frankly we are making this up as we go. And also, it might help sort my own mind.
So I and my boyfriend get bored easily, and in our local industrial estate stands a huge, empty factory - for rent or sale, with a phone number.
We made a quick list of all the things that could and should exist in a community center and contacted the owner hoping to get him to visit the place with us and agree to allow us to hold a first event in the location.
Apparently he owns another factory, so I first spoke to his secretary, then waited a few days for him to make time for a visit. In the meantime we set up a rudimentary website with a first presentation and crafted sort of a presentation email. Not handling things in my native language, so it can take some effort to come up with sth acceptable.
Then the owner called back and wanted to meet same day, so we went there, three wonderfully unprepared odd people, and since I forgot my phone and the man was late I sent bf for the phone and kid for cake and stood there alone when he and his wife drove up in a big fancy car. I was probably about as clumsy and unbusinesslike as possible presenting our project - because let's be honest, there isn't much of a project yet. I remember some 'in person activism' advice I saw recently that started with 'gather your friends' and the thing is, I don't really have any friends?
The place is huge. On 2500m2 indoor area there's huge rooms, cooling chamber, probably around 150m2 stores of office spaces, another two separate large sheds .... plus 10.000m2 outdoor area. While visiting the place I ended up talking to the woman more and she was kind enough to ask me the right questions to make our idea understandable to her and she warmed up to the whole thing, and so did he. Bf and kid arrived eventually and did another tour through the factory while I stayed talking to the owners outside.
They did agree to the event, skeptically but then they don't have much to lose really. They suggested we should speak to the local council, and get back to them with the event plans.
So, we've basically started with the location because it's just soooo neat, and are now hoping to find people by organizing this event. If we get a large enough group of people wanting to use part of the space we might be able to raise enough money for rent or purchase. We are planning to create an association once we find collaborators.
It's stupidly ambitious, we are enjoying ourselves. If this place or approach doesn't work we'll move on to the next.
Oh that's kind of cool. I know of a museum close by that was converted from a cheese factory. Seems like a good place to re-purpose for the community.
I just get so excited with abandoned big buildings and their possibilities. I tried a similar thing before in a slightly smaller (but still too large for one person) space. Didn't work out, but now I have a great partner to restart this with. We both have already consciously decided we want this in the hands of an association as soon as we have enough people to found one, and notrun it as a private project, or try to keep control over it.
That's great man! It's good to know that's what you wanted out of all of this beforehand, it will definitely solidify the direction you want it to go and it sounds like it will be a really good thing!