ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Not everyone wants to work from home or pay big bucks to lease commercial space. There’s a creative co-working space in Rochester’s Neighborhood of the Arts where all you need is your laptop.

Video production and marketing pros Gene Smith and business partner Matt Gebhardt are super cool and creative guys who moved their digital business from the dining room at home and into Flower City Studios. They renovated nearly every square foot of the space on Anderson Avenue in Rochester.

What You Need To Know

  • Flower City Collective is a group of small business owners that specialize in video production, 3D animation, photography, web design and graphic design

  • It's a unique co-work environment to share space and resources

  • Membership includes a shared conference room, breakroom with kitchenette and bathroom, lounge area, free street parking, dedicated desk, Wi-Fi access throughout the space, a Google-verified mailing address and all utilities

  • Members are also invited to reserve the space for photo and video shoots and other small events

“So in this building, we started upstairs,” said Gene Smith, co-owner of Flower City Studios and Flower City Collective. “I think what’s been nice here and put a special touch on it for us is that my brother-in-law Charlie, my brother-in-law Brian, my cousin Jimmy, Matt my business partner, Matt’s brother, nephew, and a whole slew of friends have either painted, cleaned, worked on it and put up walls. We’ve done all that.”

To stay ahead and help pay for the space, they invited other small businesses and freelancers to join their co-working space at Flower City Collective that's located inside Flower City Studios. So far the small business owners who are members also work in video production, photography, web and graphic design.

Rachel McGuire works on CommunityScape. It’s an online community platform. She’s worked out of the Flower City Collective co-space since the fall.

“So yes, it was getting very tiring to be home alone in the house, and I started looking at co-work spaces and I looked at a bunch of different types,” McGuire said. “But this place really immediately spoke to me when I came in and saw what was happening.”

They each work on their own stuff, but they can chat and bounce ideas around and even collaborate on projects. That’s a plus.

“Yes, we have really grown a lot,” said Matt Gebhardt, co-owner of Flower City Studios and Flower City Collective. “I’m really proud of what we built here and we constantly come up with new ideas. There’s a lot of room to build out and it’s always evolving, always growing.”

Flower City Collective memberships include a custom-made desk, shared conference room, breakroom, lounge, Wi-Fi, utilities and free street parking. Members can also reserve space for photo or video shoots and small events. For more information call (585) 484-0112.