Makeshift Society, Gough Street's creative co-working space, will close its doors on Friday, August 26th.

In an announcement today, Makeshift founder Rena Tom said the reasons behind the closure are complicated. "Expenses were higher than income and for an old-fashioned storefront business, that’s the kiss of death," she wrote. An FAQ states that "the SF space could not sustain the continuing debt from Brooklyn (oh, construction loans!) as well as pay for itself, and thus we need to close the business here." Makeshift's Brooklyn location closed in 2015. 

Tom continues:

Makeshift was a grand experiment; it felt like the culmination of interests that I didn’t even know I had. And then a funny thing happened: it shape-shifted into its true self. I wanted a sunny window seat to read design books in and work on a laptop, a little room to meet with friends or clients, and a tiny loft that you accessed by a vintage library ladder so you could take a nap. And it had all of those things, sure, but that’s just the physical space. Makeshift started as a place and became a community.

A wonderful community! A band of creative people who talked and laughed and pitched ideas to each other and became friends and collaborators. People who shared homemade cookies and threw toys for the dogs and cooed over the babies who came to work next to their moms. People who recommended each other for jobs and edited copy for each others’ Kickstarters and took headshot photos and coded websites. The DNA of Makeshift is now a part of so many other businesses, and I still hear about the successes of our members all the time. Personally, I am still pulling from the network of people I met through this business to help me, every day. That means something.

Makeshift opened in September of 2012, with the goal of helping creative freelancers make connections and establish relationships with other people in similar fields. The space also hosted frequent workshops, classes and events.