Tech Shop Menlo Park: $120 ~15,000 sq. ft.
San Fran Noise Bridge : $80 standard/ $40 for a starving hacker ~1000 sq. ft.
NYC Resistor: around $70 ~ 1000 sq. ft.
Pumping Station One: $50 ~ no physical space (I think this is incorrect as they do have a space)
Cowtown Computer Congress: $30 ~1400 sq ft
Hack Pittsburgh ~$40 unknown size

For what it's worth I have added the "cost of living"
Minneapolis's cost of living is 2.14% Higher than the U.S. average.
San Francisco's cost of living is 87.23% Higher than the U.S. average.
Pittsburgh's cost of living is 15.51% Lower than the U.S. average.
New York City's cost of living is 64.50% Higher than the U.S. average.

I wonder how much San Fran and NYC's monthly rent is.

We have no way to poll everyone here how much they'd be willing to pay for a hypothetical space, do we?

Cowtown Computer Congress Kansas City does to have a space. They're the ones in the underground lair.

I think we really need to put together some kind of ballpark estimate to play with, and combine forces (pool resources) with the Studio Bricolage folks.

I've just spent two hours browsing commercial real-estate search sites and it's frustratingly exciting. I've sifted out 10 properties (not including the Northrup King bay I looked at last month) which I think are worth looking into. Some are for sale, some for lease. Here's just one example:

Warehouse space in Bloomington, on 86th St, between Lyndale and Nicollet
convenient to 35W and 494
renovated 2008
two dock doors, six drive-ins
26' ceilings
10 units of various sizes available
heavy power included (440V three-phase)
sprinkler system
security/alarm system included
SAMPLE UNIT: 2,705 sf, $826/month
$1.46/sf for taxes (2008)
$1.25/sf for CAM (estimated)

Oh! looks like I miss read that, yea they have a 1400 sq ft place.

Mind printing/bookmarking those and bringing them to the meeting?
be a good discussion starter.

Noisebridge is paying about $2400 a month for rent, but they have around 70 members paying in.

As I see it, the problem is convincing people to buy into this for, say, $50-$75 a month, for a couple of months, BEFORE we have a space (unless someone wants to front $2k+ of startup funds) and then KEEPING them paying that for 12-18 months while we have a fairly minimal tool stable.

Of course, the more people we have paying in, the faster we can build the tool population, but I would be astounded if we have anything fancier than what can be purchased at a Home Depot within the first year.

which would be ~410$ annually per member excluding any other costs.

COOL!

The Bloomington space would be very close to my parent's place!