Memberships up 15 to 20 percent a month as Protohaven celebrates 1st year

Jeff Greene runs his own business.

But the woodworker doesn’t have his own shop or his own tools.

Greene, of Monaca, who runs Deep Greene Woodworking, relies on Protohaven for that.

“Without this, it would be really hard for me to be as innovative as I am,” Greene said as he worked at Protohaven’s wood shop this week to clamp together a shelf made with a spalted maple veneer.

The space is celebrating its first year of offering makers, entrepreneurs and DIYers a place to work and tools to work with. The nonprofit started in the wake of TechShop, a national chain of makerspaces, closing its Pittsburgh location in Bakery Square.

Protohaven signed a lease last December for space inside a building North Trenton Avenue in Wilkinsburg. In May, Protohaven received a $165,000 grant from the Henry L. Hilman Foundation that led to an expansion to 12,500 square feet, plus new equipment offerings and the ability to offer an income-based membership rate.

To celebrate its anniversary and progress, the group is hosting an open house, “Protohaven 1.0 Launch”, from 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday at 214 N. Trenton Ave. with tours, refreshments and a welcome from Wilkinsburg Mayor Marita Garrett.

“For us this 1.0 launch is a shift from getting things set up to the classes and events now that we’re settled into the space,” said Devin Montgomery, Protohaven’s executive director.

Protohaven is divided into two sections to house its $250,000 worth of equipment. There’s the studio, for “quieter, cleaner things,” and the workshop, for “louder, messier things,” Montgomery said.

The studio includes a graphic design area with large-format printer, vinyl cutter and heat presses. An electronics bench, industrial sewing machines, computers with 2D and 3D design software, laser cutters and 3D printers are also in the front of the makerspace along with a lounge area. Back in the workshop, the CNC router is the centerpiece of the woodshop area, while a CNC plasma cutter awaiting set-up will soon mirror its capabilities on the metal fabrication side.

A stack of former TechShop chairs near the metal shop are a part of a reupholstery project, Montgomery said. Protohaven was able to buy all the equipment and furniture from the shuttered for-profit facility.

There are two small walled-off rooms for what will eventually become a computer lab on one side and a conference room on the other. The loading dock area is set up for blacksmithing. Around the corner, a new metalsmithing area for jewelry-making awaits makers.

“A lot of people might have a small workshop in their garage, but because we’re a community, we have more professional quality tools,” said Montgomery, who said small-business owners can use them to easily replicate pieces, scaling up while maintaining affordability for their customers. “They can maybe even get their garage back and park their car in there.”

Volunteers at the makerspace are now averaging about 70 hours per week. Some act as hosts, checking members in and leading tours for potential ones. Others are deemed an “area lead” for the different sections of the makerspace, and can lend advice.

Greene spends about three to four days per week at Protohaven.

“The community and all the people that are around here, in addition to the tools, that’s what keeps me coming back,” Greene said.

Cord Merrell of O’Hara often spends more than 20 hours per week at Protohaven to serve in volunteer roles in between his own hobby projects and teaching a woodworking class on Thursday nights.

“Access to a place like this is the only way I am able to do what I want to do,” he said. “It’s impossible for me to have the space to have all the machines that I need to build my projects. I wanted to dedicate as much time as I could to making this space succeed so that I and others can achieve our dreams.”

The makerspace has seen a 10 to 15 percent increase in members each month, Montgomery said. About 120 “general” members can access the equipment every day during regular hours for $105 per month. Other membership rates and access times vary.

Montgomery said most of their members are people who know how to use the tools and just needed access to them. Protohaven would like to expand its teaching programs and hopes to attract people who want to learn more maker skills, Montgomery said.

Those goals were among the reasons former TechShop members incorporated as a nonprofit and are forming partnerships with other organizations like Bricolage Production Company Downtown, the University of Pittsburgh’s newly relocated Manufacturing Assistance Center in Homewood, and FlowerHouse art studio in Wilkinsburg.

“Nothing that we were really trying to do was about creating a profit, so that’s why we we’re a nonprofit,” Montgomery said. “We wanted to optimize for impact as opposed to optimizing for profit.”

Memberships as revenue mean the space doesn’t have to rely solely on grants or donations and are meant to keep the Protohaven going, into its second year and beyond.

“I really like the fact that within this one space, we can have a lot of different kinds of users, all using it for their individual projects,” Montgomery said. “I think it makes the space more diverse, more sustainable – all things we want to do.”

Stacey Federoff is a freelance writer.