Artists Kelly Thiel, Karen Ruane and Wallis Levin all moved to Bend in the last 15 months, and had never met before working in a shared studio.

Though they work in different mediums, the three women hit it off, and decided they enjoyed working with each other so much that they wanted to open a co-working space for artists and other creative types.

“One thing that we all really enjoyed was the synergy and the enthusiasm for other projects,” Thiel said.

The Wilds, their new space, is slated to open by the end of August in the Century Center on SW Century Drive, in Bend. The trio will be offering a mix of desks and art studios that artists, writers, photographers and others can rent for a monthly fee.

“We wanted to bring in people who didn’t necessarily need studio space but needed a creative place to work,” Ruane said. “And it just grew from there.”

Nationally, co-working — the general term for working in an office environment shared by multiple companies — has done nothing but grow. According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 23 million businesses in 2013 were nonemployers, businesses with no employees that are subject to federal income tax. The development of the Internet has made it easier for self-employed individuals, nonemployers and other small firms to move out of traditional workspaces. In part because of that, the number of co-working spaces in the United States has jumped from one in 2005, to 781 by 2013, according to a study by the National Association for Industrial and Office Parks, a national commercial real estate association.

While co-working spaces have become staples in larger metropolitan areas, their rise has been slower in Bend.

However, several prominent spaces have opened in Bend since the start of 2015, including the High Desert Maker Mill, which will incorporate a co-working space on its second floor. The Bridge, a 15,300-square-foot co-working space for outdoor recreation companies at 48 SE Bridgeford Blvd., started adding companies earlier this year, according to Mark Beech, who owns the building.

The Cube, a shared indoor space outfitted with shipping containers, where a collection of home decor and architecture companies work, has been open since 2012.

Perhaps the most visible space has been the 1001 Tech Center, located at 1001 SW Emkay Drive. James Gentes, BendTECH organizer and one of the visionaries behind the tech center, said Bend’s tech community had previously clustered at a couple different co-working spaces, including TechSpace Bend, located on NW Greenwood Avenue. However, the community lacked a building with the style and amenities that could be found in Portland or Seattle until the tech center formally opened in May.

“The idea was already there to have a co-working space, but (the founders) took it up a notch by really investing in the overall aesthetic and architecture to make it a space that people would want to work at, even if they came from San Francisco or Seattle,” Gentes said.

The 26,000-square-foot building features room for larger technology companies, shared conference rooms and Stackhouse Coffee, a coffee shop that’s open to the public. It also has 7,000 square feet dedicated to co-working for smaller technology startups, with 21 offices organized around a cluster of 32 standalone desks, an area that Gentes calls “the bullpen.”

“We found that this type of layout fosters more interaction between companies that work here,” Gentes said.

This interaction is one of the major draws of the tech center and other co-working spaces. Tierney O’Dea Booker, a writer for BendTECH’s blog and an adviser on the layout of the tech center, said one of the appeals of co-working is the camaraderie and possibility for collaboration that comes with bringing people with similar passions together.

“There’s this serendipity when you meet each other,” O’Dea Booker said.

This serendipity is not exclusive to small companies. Kollective Technology Inc., a cloud computing firm previously based in Sunnyvale, California, formally moved into 1001 Emkay at the beginning of July. CEO Dan Vetras cited the new building as one of the reasons for the move.

Despite having been in the tech center for a short time, Vetras said Kollective has already collaborated with other larger tenants, including the creative agency Pneuma33 and the Web design firm Five Talent Software.

“I love the entrepreneurial feeling here; you can just feel the vibe when you’re in Stackhouse,” Vetras said.

The founders of The Wilds are trying to incorporate this collaborative feeling as well. Thiel said the company’s mix of 11 desks and six dedicated studios sets it apart from other creative spaces, which typically emphasize one or the other. Ruane added that this mix would allow members to collaborate with artists working in very different mediums from their own.

“I think, in general, co-working attracts like-minded people,” Ruane said.

Thiel added that having other people around can stimulate productivity as well, and having a separate space, rather than a home office, frees people from day-to-day distractions.

“I think this will be a huge step in people’s productivity,” Thiel said.

Going forward, O’Dea Booker said Bend, which has a high percentage of independent workers who are drawn to the city for its quality of life without a full-time job, is a natural fit for co-working. As companies continue to shift away from traditional offices, she said she expects to see more industry-specific co-working spaces in the near future.

“This town could support 12 co-working spaces, easily,” O’Dea Booker said.

— Reporter: 541-617-7818, shamway@bendbulletin.com