WAKE FOREST – Community leaders gathered with executives fro coworking space provider Loading Dock to break ground for a new facility in Wake Forest on Monday.

“After nearly three years of scouting, recruitment, and partnership development, we are proud to formally announce the arrival of Loading Dock Wake Forest (LDWF) to our thriving community,” says Jason Cannon, president of the Wake Forest Business & Industry Partnership.

Cannon calls the development as what stands to be “the most significant development in Wake Forest’s entrepreneurial ecosystem to date.”

The expansion of Loading Dock to Wake Forest from Raleigh was announced earlier this year.

Loading Dock launched in 2016

Why Wake Forest? According to Clark Rinehart, Loading Dock Raleigh’s director of community, Wake Forest was primed and ready for an incubator space like Loading Dock.

“The town really was yearning for a premium, professional, and approachable coworking and shared workspace provider with ties across Wake County,” Rinehart said. “When they first approached us, we wanted to make sure that we were the right fit for the town with what we do and how we think about entrepreneurship and small business — things that Wake Forest is particularly focused on. People are already living and playing in Wake Forest and the town wants to see people continuing to grow and thrive from a professional standpoint too. Loading Dock felt like we could be a great resource for the town as they grew into their live-work-play model.”

Loading Dock – Wake Forest is being developed in a former warehouse space at 525 South White Street. The historic downtown space has sat largely unused over the past several years.

The nearly $3 million revitalization project is slated to transform roughly “24,000 square feet of leasable area into a two-story coworking and business incubator space, complete with street-facing multi-vendor food hall and event space,” stated a press release put out by the Wake Forest Business and Industry Partnership, which has been instrumental in catalyzing the project.

Additionally, the incubator is expected to house more than 100 companies with a collective employment of 436 at full capacity. Of these, it is forecasted there will be nearly 150 new jobs created in Wake Forest’s Renaissance District as a result of the development.

Loading Dock coworking and incubator space getting a home in downtown Wake Forest