NASHUA – With the stamp of city approval in hand, the state’s first makerspace just needs one thing to move to bigger, better quarters: Money.

You might even get a marshmallow-firing crossbow out of it.

On Tuesday night the Board of Aldermen unanimously approved a five-year lease on a portion of the former Armstrong Cabinets building at 25 Crown St. for MakeIt Labs, the open-access community workshop. Now the nonprofit group is trying to raise $30,000 to cover moving and fix-up costs for the buildings, which has been empty for a year and has been vandalized somewhat.

“We’re trying to get the word out about the fundraising. We’re excited, we’re optimistic that they’re going to reach their goal,” said Tom Galligani, economic development director for the city. “I think people will see this as a great thing for the city.”

The city isn’t contributing to the costs, but did rework the lease at the group’s request. The lease is designed to collect roughly the same amount that would be collected by property taxes on the property over the entire five years, but the fees is graduated to make the financial transition easier.

Rent starts at $10,000 the first year, which is less than MakeIt Labs now pays, and rises to $30,000 the final year.

Even with the lease approved, the move isn’t certain. The group notes that it might find undiscovered or underestimated damage to the building, which has been vandalized while vacant, that would exceed their budget. But so far, everybody remains hopeful.

And what about that marshmallow crossbow? It’s the prize you’ll get if you contribute at least $30 to the group’s fundraising campaign on the website Indiegogo.

The small crossbow can be assembled out of laser-cut board, using MakeIt Labs’ design, to fire marshmallows via rubber bands.

“All you need is a little bit of glue and time to let it dry, and you co-workers are doomed,” gloats MakeIt Labs on the Indiegogo site, playing into the secret desires of cubicle-dwelling employees everywhere. More donations bring other prizes ranging from free time on the auto-lift to a three-hour science-based event for up to 10 people to a “prominent spot on our wall of awesome.”

That fundraising pitches reflect the personality of makerspaces, a mix of geeky knowledge and loose, anti-authoritarian panache, is part of their appeal.

Makerspaces, also called hackerspaces, operate like a membership gym for people interested in do-it-yourself engineering and construction projects, who don’t have equipment or room to do projects and who want to share knowledge with like-minded folks.

MakeIt Labs opened in 2011, the first such “makerspace” in New Hampshire, in a beat-up building at 23 Crown St. Despite some initial hiccups – the city shut it down at first because of building code concerns – it has thrived. MakeIt Labs now has roughly 80 paid members and lots of visitors.

The proposed move would roughly triple its current 6,000 square feet of floor space.

That would allow more room for things like its laser cutter, computers, auto lift and welders that are used by members, as well as more space for classes like one held Saturday on how to build and use Arduino, the open-source computer system.

The new building also holds out promise for business-oriented services like co-working spaces or areas for technology incubators, which is one reason that the city would like to see it move. Like many makerspaces, MakeIt Labs is already used by some very small companies that can’t afford their own machine shops to build prototypes.

The city bought the property, covering 7 acres as well as the office building, showroom and warehouse, for $1.425 million in 2013 to construct a future park-and-ride facility, if passenger rail ever moves up from Lowell, Mass. Parts of the buildings date back a century or more, and they have been empty since Armstrong Cabinets moved out in 2014.

The emptiness is a problem, since it has allowed vandalism, such as the theft of much of the copper pipes and some electrical conduit, that will cost money to fix.

David Brooks can be reached at 594-6531, dbrooks@nashua
telegraph.com or @GraniteGeek.