The best creative offices are born of necessity and discontent, coworking maven and Grind co-founder Benjamin Dyett, a speaker at Bisnow’s Chicago Creative Office Summit on Jan. 30, tells us. (He's also an avid sailor, above right.) When he changed careers from being a real estate lawyer to a consultant/entrepreneur, he had the same problem as any Grind member, he says—finding a decent place to work. Coffee shops or friends’ conference rooms were not a professional presentation for clients, and a bad experience renting an office suite had him scratching out the initial plan for NY-based Grind. The idea: professional branding and client-worthy space in a haven for entrepreneurship.

Membership is growing at Grind’s 11k SF Loop space (above), 2 N LaSalle St, which opened in September and can accommodate about 100 members per day. The company made a bold choice to open in the Loop versus River North, Benjamin says. It's bullish on the CBD’s future and also wants to distinguish Grind as a space for all entrepreneurs, not just tech (the sexy thing these days). “As much as I love app developers, if we had a room full of them we wouldn’t be a collaborative community,” he says. (That’s why applicants are screened with a focus on diversity of expertise.) The biggest challenge remains awareness of this new world of work, he says, especially in the more cautious Midwest.