Hi Doug, <br><br>Sorry to hear about the shutdown. <br><br>Community Cycles in Boulder scored some storage space from two out of the ordinary sources. First, the City of Boulder owns a parking garage downtown. It&#39;s the same building that the bus station is in. There is an underused room for storage that will hold several hundred bikes. There&#39;s very poor lighting, no external windows, and no heating. It&#39;s pretty much a concrete room. Also, it&#39;s directly underneath the parking garage. When it&#39;s winter, and it snows, the chemicals from the road salt leak through seams in the concrete and corrode metal. Not all that friendly to bikes. We&#39;ve had the space for several years now, and have some experience with where not to put bikes in that room. <br>
<br>We were also approached by Boulder County with some of their space. The building that houses their big snow plow vehicles and several other large emergency response vehicles was scheduled to be unused for 2 years. In about 2 years, the building will either be torn down or sold. As it would sit unused and empty for 2 years, they called us and offered us the space for the interim. We can&#39;t do a lot of our programming out of the space, but we can store and wrench on bikes there. It&#39;s an invaluable resource, as it can hold 400 bikes easy, 5 to 6 hundred if we really need it to. <br>
<br>I don&#39;t have any specific advice for you, Doug, as both of these spaces sort of fell on us. But I would suggest asking around to everyone you know to see if anyone knows anything, and encouraging them to ask around, too. Just get the word out that you&#39;re looking for a space, and make it a desperate plea...In this economy, there are plenty of empty spaces...as bad as that sounds...<br>
<br>Good luck.<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 5:15 PM, 1304bikes <span dir="ltr">&lt;<a href="mailto:1304bikes@gmail.com">1304bikes@gmail.com</a>&gt;</span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
We at 1304bikes here in Raleigh recently had our shop shut down by the city due to zoning/building code issues.  We are currently regrouping and fundraising, while trying to find a new space.  <br><br>We like to hear from other shops as to what kind of support you get from the cities you are located in (the actual city government, not the people in it).  Whether it be donated space, money, or just good will.  We are hoping to get some info about relationships that other shops have with their respective cities to use in our attempt to find a new location.  <br>

<br>Thanks all!<br><br>-Doug<br clear="all"><font color="#888888"><br>-- <br>1304bikes<br><a href="http://www.1304bikes.org" target="_blank">www.1304bikes.org</a><br>
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