Almost a month to the day since Councilman Joseph Uzoaru took possession of the former federal building in downtown Cape Girardeau, the first tenant has announced plans to establish Southeast Missouri's first co-working community within its walls.

Local entrepreneurs and co-founders Chris Foeste and Dr. James Stapleton announced Friday their newest venture, Codefi, would operate there by late August.

The idea of co-working may be new to the local area, but Stapleton said it's a popular concept across the nation.

"Codefi is really a new approach of bringing people together, talented people, solving the problem of the isolation that exists when you work independently as a freelancer or someone that's in their basement writing code and working on design," he said. "The basic idea is that talented people can learn more, create more, produce more, working together. And our hope is when those businesses are developing here, they fall out into other spaces in the downtown area and the rest of Cape Girardeau."

Groups and individuals will have the opportunity to take advantage of high-speed Wi-Fi, conference and meeting spaces, printing and copying with a one-day pass or unlimited access each month.

But Stapleton and Foeste said the biggest asset will be providing space and opportunity to bring entrepreneurs from different realms together to create better products.

The two had searched for the right space for a while. Foeste said when they learned the old federal building was available, they immediately were interested.

"The space that we found here in the old federal courthouse building does fit our needs for not only [for] presentations, but being able to have entrepreneurs come in and work, members of the community being able to stop by and being able to open up shop and start working right away."

While the infrastructure is solid, it will take work to bring the technology up to speed. But Foeste, general manager of Big River Telephone Co., said his expertise will help update the space quickly.

Stapleton also plans to bring his other work experiences to Codefi. He's executive director of the Douglas C. Greene Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Southeast Missouri State University and said he looks forward to lending a hand to local, up-and-coming entrepreneurs. Research indicates most jobs created come from new and small businesses, Stapleton said, and he hopes to help foster more creativity among people creating those jobs.

Foeste said ideally, Codefi would become a hub for entrepreneurs in downtown because the co-working spaces are "open to anybody and everybody."

The co-founders recognized it would take time to explain the concept of their new business to others and said they plan to reaching out to groups and individuals soon so they can take advantage of the space when it opens. They also plan to announce their first big event by the end of August.

srinehart@semissourian.com

388-3641

Pertinent address:

339 Broadway, Cape Girardeau, Mo.

Why Codefi?

Foeste said the name is fitting for the new business for a few reasons:

* "Co" invokes the idea of collaboration or co-working

* "Code" means to code something to program. It speaks to the business' "tech slant" because it will have the latest technological infrastructure.

* "Defi": Entrepreneurs look to break away from the norm and defy or disrupt the typical business model.