CoSpace: Joy St. Clair Imagined It – Now She’s Expanding It
- May 5
- 2 min read
Walk into CoSpace on any given afternoon and you will hear music before you see anything else. Not elevator music. Not a curated playlist designed to make you feel productive. Something with a little more soul than that, the kind of soundtrack that tells you immediately this space was made by someone who thought carefully about who would be sitting in it.
That has always been the point. When Joy St. Clair opened CoSpace in 2023, she was building the space she had looked for and never found, a professional environment where Black entrepreneurs, creatives, and small business owners could work without having to shrink themselves to fit in. Three years later, the vision has not changed. The square footage has.
This spring, St. Clair expanded CoSpace from 500 to 1,536 square feet, a move backed by nearly 1,800 members served, more than 266 events hosted, and a Best Coworking Space in Florida title she has now held two years in a row. All of it self-funded. All of it in Miami Gardens, where St. Clair deliberately chose to build the business.
“If I was going to start a business I knew 100% that it would be located in Miami Gardens,” St. Clair said.
St. Clair, who grew up in Liberty City and graduated from South Miami Senior High’s magnet program, first opened CoSpace after noticing a gap she knew personally. During the pandemic, working remotely as a project manager while pregnant and managing her health as a Non-Hodgkin lymphoma survivor, she started looking for a coworking space that felt right for someone like her. She could not find one. So she started it herself.
What started with 18 members and a gallery wall she built in a weekend for Black artists to show and sell their work has grown into one of South Florida’s most recognized independent coworking spaces. The expansion brings more offices, more desks, more room for the workshops, content shoots, and community moments that have made CoSpace what it is. The feel, St. Clair is clear, stays exactly the same.
A few years ago, St. Clair sat in front of her laptop at CoSpace and watched every person who walked through the door wave hello. Standing in a space three times the size of where she started, with hundreds of members and two state titles behind her, it is starting to look like the middle of something much bigger.
CoSpace founder Joy St. Clair
CoSpace is located at 17161 NW 27th Ave, Miami Gardens, FL 33056. Membership inquiries and more information are available at welcometocospace.com and on Instagram at @the.cospace.
About CoSpace
CoSpace is Miami Gardens’ first co-working and content studio, founded by Joy St. Clair in 2023. Self-funded and community driven, CoSpace has served nearly 1,800 members, hosted more than 266 events, and earned Best Coworking Space in Florida two consecutive years. The space supports entrepreneurs, creatives, and small business owners with professional workspace, content production capabilities, and a community built around collaboration, culture, and growth.