A couple of years ago, an inveterate entrepreneur, Jason Hardebeck, brought his makerspace concept to Port Covington. Jason’s Foundery has now shuttered its operations in City Garage. He simply couldn’t figure out a way to sustain operations without outside funding. Many would say that’s the risk with any enterprise – the ineluctable realities of capitalism, however unfortunate such demise is to the venture at hand. However, if willing to look past the Foundery’s business model, we can explore whether shared space concepts such as the Foundery and CommonWealth Kitchen, discussed last week, are important elements contributing to how cities reinvent themselves, while coming to grips with the reality that these places should exist not simply as a financial exercise.

Much of my worry comes from the significant push by cities to attract redevelopment dollars derived from Opportunity Zone funding. This funding is intended to reimagine and revitalize some of our most distressed communities. But the nature of capital is to seek the greatest return for the least amount of risk. Therein lies the tension: funding the coolest vision is concomitant with financial risk. While Opportunity Zones are designed to nudge capital towards more risky development that otherwise wouldn’t get funded, the reality is communities must be vigilant in ensuring projects undertaken have a meaningful impact on the most disadvantaged.

Back to Jason’s Foundery. Jason had a vision for a makerspace filled with woodworking, metalworking and 3D printing,equipment shared not only by startups and hipsters but whose training programs provided much needed skills to city residents, including clients of the Center for Urban Families. Jason succeed in creating a bustling place, filled with startups creating prototypes, members using equipment, hipsters taking classes, and workforce training throughout the day. The Foundery was a real and rare mash up of Baltimore. His problem: cash flow from those activities didn’t cover operating costs.

Weller Development, the landlord for this corner of Port Covington, should be applauded for giving the Foundery a chance. However, it’s hard to see how any shared space concept would be able to fully cover market-based costs if it also has a social mission – such as that of the Foundery. Could a makerspace like the Foundery be “WeWorked” such that it retains its coolness while every user covers its costs. I suspect so. But in so doing, you won’t see a mash up of hipsters, hobbyists, groups like the Center for Urban Families all in there together, as the math simply doesn’t work. Even if viable for a while, the developer for the project will, over time, find a more lucrative use for the property. Such was the fate for CommonWealth Kitchen’s site in Boston – a place credited with reinventing the foodie experience throughout Bean Town and now displaced due to its own success.

Mine isn’t a plea to keep Jason’s operation alive in Port Covington. That chapter is over. While I haven’t spoken with Jason, I know he’s continuing to pursue his vision for the Foundery at a site on Central Avenue. Mine is a worry that communities will blow their chance to re-envision their future, particularly given the potential impact of Opportunity Zone dollars. As communities sort through how their Opportunity Zones should be developed, they should keep in mind the temporal nature of some projects. It’s a rare development that lasts forever as initially envisioned. But a well-designed plan can ensure that shared spaces and other structures intended for broad community use remain so even as models change and new ideas for use arrive. Absent such a strategy, space can easily be repurposed for more lucrative tenants when the opportunity arises, to the exclusion of the very community that the space was intended to benefit.

I’m not worried that Port Covington will find another use for the Foundery’s shuttered space at City Garage. Though I suspect when it’s repurposed, it won’t be filled with the amazing mix of Baltimore that Jason coaxed through his doors. No doubt, these new tenants will be able to pay market rent. Yet the very fabric of what makes communities attractive is often the hardest to weave if left to the marketalone. Gentrification is tricky. To stem its worst effects, one needs to envision community space as more than a transitional use by the locals until a more profitable tenant arrives.

With more than 30 years’ experience in law and business, Newt Fowler, a partner in Womble Bond Dickinson’s business practice, advises many investors, entrepreneurs and technology companies, guiding them through all aspects of business planning, financing transactions, technology commercialization and M&A. He’s the pastboard chair of TEDCO. Newt can be reached at newt.fowler@wbd-us.com.