Tell me why a room-and-board-and-bandwidth incubator is a stupid idea
frig: I don't think you can make your proposal work in a way that's a good use of your time (and other resources) as you've originally proposed.If I were you I'd tweak this around a bit.There might be an interesting niche for apartment-complex/executive-suite hybrids.Basically an apartment complex but with a reasonable # of "conference rooms" and/or mini-workspaces.The ground floor would be given over to conference rooms / work cubbies / etc. and the upper floors mainly apartments (with perhaps some more workspace thrown in).The appeal to young contractor / freelancer types would be pretty obvious, if the price is right: convenient to their needs and cheaper than renting a proper office + an apartment would be.There's probably a bit of a trade-off -- every square foot given over to workspace is a square foot you're not renting out -- but with enough research and input from experts in this area you would be able to figure out if it worked.I'm not sure Richmond is the right place for it but if there's enough in the vicinity you could possibly make it work.If you got enough of a good thing going you might then branch out into letting tenants stay for free (or reduced rent, etc.) in exchange for equity if they were starting up their own thing.