A coworking space for creative professionals that doubles as an event venue in the evenings has opened at 705 St. Joseph St. in Beauregard Town.
The Parlor, as the space is called, is located in the building that formerly housed Lagniappe Records. By day, it offers workspace and meeting space with Wi-Fi access and gourmet coffee to graphic designers, photographers, artists and other freelancers in the creative field, who can access the space either by paying a $15 daily fee or a $150 monthly membership.
After business hours, the 1,100-square-foot space is transformed into a venue for concerts, workshops and other events. Tonight, for example, the space will be used for a sold-out fundraiser hosted by an organization that fights human trafficking.
Jody Johnston is the brainchild behind The Parlor. He’s also the co-owner of a marketing firm, Post Parlor. Johnston says the idea behind his venue is to bring creative types in Baton Rouge together and enable them to collaborate and share ideas and resources. Eventually, his dream is to create a “collective” for freelance creatives.
“We’d like to get to the point where someone could just call up and say they need a graphic designer or a photographer and we’d have someone here we could refer to them,” Johnston says. “There’s so much talent in this market and especially since the movie industry has pretty much gone away, we have a lot of creative people from the film industry that are available for work.”
Though The Parlor opened quietly earlier this spring, Johnston says awareness of the space and its popularity have grown over this summer. He hopes the word will continue to spread and that, eventually, The Parlor’s model can be replicated in other spaces around Baton Rouge and, possibly, beyond.
“For us this is a proof of concept because the great big dream is to have The Parlor functioning at a much greater level,” Johnston says. “But for now we are taking it as we can.”
The Parlor is the second creative coworking space in the downtown area. In late 2014, the 11,500-square-foot Creative Bloc opened at 804 Main St. It houses several small creative firms and also offers individual workspace.
—Stephanie Riegel
