Houston innovation hub expands coworking space

more room at the Ion

The Ion has announced that it is adding an additional 28,000 square feet of coworking space. Photo courtesy of the Ion

The Ion has announced it will bring more coworking space to its facility.

The innovation hub in Midtown, which is owned and operated by Rice Management Company, expanded its partnership with Dallas-based Common Desk to the Ion’s fourth floor. The addition brings another 28,000 square feet of workspace to the building.

“When people work in an inspiring place that fosters community, going into work is exciting. The Ion’s experience with Common Desk proves it,” says Jan E. Odegard, executive director of the Ion. “This rapid expansion signals that the Ion is the place to be for growing organizations, and we will soon be releasing new programs that expand our value proposition for startups, investors, corporations, academic institutions, and the community.”

According to the release, Common Desk's Ion space — originally opened in August of 2021 — reached max capacity in less than a year and now has a waiting list. The new combined space will total 86,400 square feet of coworking space for Houston entrepreneurs.

"With RMC’s support, we created a thoughtful design, along with the amenities and memberships offered,” says Common Desk's Head of Real Estate Dawson Williams in the release. “One year later, this space in the Ion is a game-changer for Houston’s innovators. It’s exciting that we’re already expanding because so many rapidly growing companies want to be inside the Ion and experience everything it has to offer.”

Founded in 2012, Common Desk has grown to over 20 locations and counting in Dallas, Houston, Austin, Wilmington, and Raleigh. In Houston, the company has opened coworking space in several locations, most recently at the POST in downtown.

The Ion's Common Desk space originally opened last summer. Rendering courtesy of Common Desk

A coworking company and a real estate firm have been tapped by The Ion. Courtesy of Rice University

Rising Houston innovation hub announces real estate partners

eye on the ion

Last week, Rice Management Co. announced the latest partners for The Ion. A Houston-based real estate management firm and a Dallas-based coworking company have signed onto the project.

Texas coworking company Common Desk, which recently opened a new space in Houston's east downtown, was tapped to develop and manage The Ion's more than 58,000 square feet of experiential, flexible office space on the second floor of the building.

"For a project as special as The Ion, it was important that we selected a flexible office space operator that understood the building's ethos as a space for collaboration and innovation," says Ryan LeVasseur, managing director of Direct Real Estate at RMC, in a news release. "From the moment we met with the Common Desk team, it was clear they represented the right balance of sophistication and excitement and shared a commitment to creating a sense of community."

Additionally, Common Desk will be responsible for a coffee bar and maintaining a vibrant and engaging space for tenants, startups, and community members.

"We're thrilled to be a part of this prestigious project and are looking forward to offering individuals, small businesses, and high-growth companies the chance to experience the unique programming and innovative spirit of the building," says Dawson Williams, head of real estate at Common Desk, in the release. "We're excited to be a strategic gateway to helping Houstonians experience all The Ion has to offer."

RMC tapped Transwestern to oversee property management for all of The Ion through its building, tenant, vendor, compliance, client, and administrative services.

"Very few companies have Transwestern's breadth of experience and proven success of managing high-quality, talent-attracting workplaces," LeVasseur says in the release. "Add to that the company's deep roots in Houston, and we're confident we're working with the best team to ensure a flawless, attractive, activated, and efficiently operated hub for the growth of Houston's innovation ecosystem."

Based in Houston, Transwestern has over 400 properties locally across office, multifamily, health care, and other industries.

"Transwestern is excited to work alongside Rice Management Corporation as property and facilities manager for The Ion, while contributing to its mission of innovation, collaboration and inclusion," says Kevin Roberts, Southwest President at Transwestern, in the release. "As Transwestern continues to elevate our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, we are proud to stand alongside The Ion in supporting minority and women-owned businesses in enabling innovation that will shape the future of Houston."

Along with Houston-based real estate developer Ancorian, Common Desk is headed for Houston. Courtesy of Common Desk

Texas coworking company plans Houston location in East Downtown

New to HOU

Houston will soon be home to another large coworking space. Common Desk, a Texas company, has announced plans for a Houston location in East Downtown — selected for its culture and opportunity.

The Dallas-born concept specializes in coworking in hospitality and has joined forces with Houston-based Ancorian, a real estate development company, for the project. Expected to open in summer 2020, Common Desk will occupy 25,000 square feet of a 42,000-square-foot warehouse redevelopment known as "The Block." The facility will also have an outpost of Dallas-based Bishop Cider.

"EaDo reminds us of Deep Ellum, which was the first location we ever opened in Dallas in 2012," says Nick Clark, founder and CEO of Common Desk, in a news release. "It has the cultural authenticity and significance that we as a brand love to build a foundation from, offering the diverse variety of concepts and convenience you want from a submarket, without the congestion and parking difficulties you might find in a central business district. We're excited to bring some of our soulful vibes and southern hospitality to Eado."

Houston's East Downtown Common Desk will occupy 25,000 square feet of a 42,000-square-foot warehouse redevelopment known as "The Block." Courtesy of Common Desk

Common Desk, which got its start in 2012, now has eight locations in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and three in in Austin, and its Houston members will eventually have access to these other locations. A common theme in the companies concepts is bridging the gap between coworking and dining and hospitality concepts. Fiction Coffee, Common Desk's coffee bar concept, is expected to open alongside the coworking space.

"Houston isn't just another market for us; it's a city we love, and we expect our approach to service and design to resonate well with Houstonians," says Dawson Williams, head of real estate at Common Desk, in the release. "We plan to go deep in Houston just as we have in Dallas, and our goal is to become the go-to coworking brand in the market."

Ancorian has previously worked on the East Village in the East Downtown area, which include concepts like Indianola, Truck Yard, F45 Fitness, Koffeteria, Rodeo Goat, and True Anomaly Brewing.

"We are heavily invested in East Downtown Houston, and we felt that our latest development 'The Block' was a perfect location for a coworking concept," says Michael Sperandio, founding partner of Ancorian. "We work very hard to choose tenants that fit each specific development we create. After meeting Nick Clark and Dawson Williams of Common Desk, we felt like they were the best operators in the coworking space industry."

Houston's Common Desk location will have a warehouse feel and is expected to feature various amenities and member perks, including:

     
  • Fitness and wellness center concept, complete with towels and shower facilities
  • Outdoor patio and terrarium
  • Multi-level seating
  • Wet bar and shared kitchen
  • Skylights that will bring in natural lighting
  • Event space
  • Murals and local art

"This group puts together all the necessary elements to draw people into their workspaces," Sperandio continues. "They focus on great design, thoughtful and functional space layout, and they have created an energetic and comfortable environment that attracts new members and keeps existing members loyal to the Common Desk brand. We feel that Common Desk's vision for an experiential workspace will make this one of the best locations to work in the entire city."

Houston's Common Desk members will have access to other Texas locations. Courtesy of Common Desk

Ad Placement 300x100
Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Property Showcase

Greentown Labs names Lawson Gow as its new Houston leader

head of hou

Greentown Labs has named Lawson Gow as its Head of Houston.

Gow is the founder of The Cannon, a coworking space with seven locations in the Houston area, with additional partner spaces. He also recently served as managing partner at Houston-based investment and advisory firm Helium Capital. Gow is the son of David Gow, founder of Energy Capital's parent company, Gow Media.

According to Greentown, Gow will "enhance the founder experience, cultivate strategic partnerships, and accelerate climatetech solutions" in his new role.

“I couldn’t be more excited to join Greentown at this critical moment for the energy transition,” Gow said in a news release. “Greentown has a fantastic track record of supporting entrepreneurs in Houston, Boston, and beyond, and I am eager to keep advancing our mission in the energy transition capital of the world.”

Gow has also held analyst, strategy and advising roles since graduating from Rice University.

“We are thrilled to welcome Lawson to our leadership team,” Georgina Campbell Flatter, CEO of Greentown Labs, added in the release. “Lawson has spent his career building community and championing entrepreneurs, and we look forward to him deepening Greentown’s support of climate and energy startups as our Head of Houston.”

Gow is the latest addition to a series of new hires at Greentown Labs following a leadership shakeup.

Flatter was named as the organization's new CEO in February, replacing Kevin Dutt, Greentown’s interim CEO, who replaced Kevin Knobloch after he announced that he would step down in July 2024 after less than a year in the role.

Greentown also named Naheed Malik its new CFO in January.

Timmeko Moore Love was named the first Houston general manager and senior vice president of Greentown Labs. According to LinkedIn, she left the role in January.

---

This article originally appeared on our sister site, EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

Houston foundation grants $27M to support Texas chemistry research

fresh funding

Houston-based The Welch Foundation has doled out $27 million in its latest round of grants for chemical research, equipment and postdoctoral fellowships.

According to a June announcement, $25.5 million was allocated for the foundation's longstanding research grants, which provide $100,000 per year in funding for three years to full-time, regular tenure or tenure-track faculty members in Texas. The foundation made 85 grants to faculty at 16 Texas institutions for 2025, including:

  • Michael I. Jacobs, assistant professor in the chemistry and biochemistry department at Texas State University, who is investigating the structure and thermodynamics of intrinsically disordered proteins, which could "reveal clues about how life began," according to the foundation.
  • Kendra K. Frederick, assistant professor in the biophysics department at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, who is studying a protein linked to Parkinson’s disease.
  • Jennifer S. Brodbelt, professor in chemistry at The University of Texas at Austin, who is testing a theory called full replica symmetry breaking (fullRSB) on glass-like materials, which has implications for complex systems in physics, chemistry and biology.

Additional funding will be allocated to the Welch Postdoctoral Fellows of the Life Sciences Research Foundation. The program provides three-year fellowships to recent PhD graduates to support clinical research careers in Texas. Two fellows from Rice University and Baylor University will receive $100,000 annually for three years.

The Welch Foundation also issued $975,000 through its equipment grant program to 13 institutions to help them develop "richer laboratory experience(s)." The universities matched funds of $352,346.

Since 1954, the Welch Foundation has contributed over $1.1 billion for Texas-nurtured advancements in chemistry through research grants, endowed chairs and other chemistry-related ventures. Last year, the foundation granted more than $40.5 million in academic research grants, equipment grants and fellowships.

“Through funding basic chemical research, we are actively investing in the future of humankind,” Adam Kuspa, president of The Welch Foundation, said the news release. “We are proud to support so many talented researchers across Texas and continue to be inspired by the important work they complete every day.”

New Houston biotech co. developing capsules for hard-to-treat tumors

biotech breakthroughs

Houston company Sentinel BioTherapeutics has made promising headway in cancer immunotherapy for patients who don’t respond positively to more traditional treatments. New biotech venture creation studio RBL LLC (pronounced “rebel”) recently debuted the company at the 2025 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting in Chicago.

Rima Chakrabarti is a neurologist by training. Though she says she’s “passionate about treating the brain,” her greatest fervor currently lies in leading Sentinel as its CEO. Sentinel is RBL’s first clinical venture, and Chakrabarti also serves as cofounder and managing partner of the venture studio.

The team sees an opportunity to use cytokine interleukin-2 (IL-2) capsules to fight many solid tumors for which immunotherapy hasn't been effective in the past. “We plan to develop a pipeline of drugs that way,” Chakrabarti says.

This may all sound brand-new, but Sentinel’s research goes back years to the work of Omid Veiseh, director of the Rice Biotechnology Launch Pad (RBLP). Through another, now-defunct company called Avenge Bio, Veiseh and Paul Wotton — also with RBLP and now RBL’s CEO and chairman of Sentinel — invested close to $45 million in capital toward their promising discovery.

From preclinical data on studies in mice, Avenge was able to manufacture its platform focused on ovarian cancer treatments and test it on 14 human patients. “That's essentially opened the door to understanding the clinical efficacy of this drug as well as it's brought this to the attention of the FDA, such that now we're able to continue that conversation,” says Chakrabarti. She emphasizes the point that Avenge’s demise was not due to the science, but to the company's unsuccessful outsourcing to a Massachusetts management team.

“They hadn't analyzed a lot of the data that we got access to upon the acquisition,” explains Chakrabarti. “When we analyzed the data, we saw this dose-dependent immune activation, very specific upregulation of checkpoints on T cells. We came to understand how effective this agent could be as an immune priming agent in a way that Avenge Bio hadn't been developing this drug.”

Chakrabarti says that Sentinel’s phase II trials are coming soon. They’ll continue their previous work with ovarian cancer, but Chakrabarti says that she also believes that the IL-2 capsules will be effective in the treatment of endometrial cancer. There’s also potential for people with other cancers located in the peritoneal cavity, such as colorectal cancer, gastrointestinal cancer and even primary peritoneal carcinomatosis.

“We're delivering these capsules into the peritoneal cavity and seeing both the safety as well as the immune activation,” Chakrabarti says. “We're seeing that up-regulation of the checkpoint that I mentioned. We're seeing a strong safety signal. This drug was very well-tolerated by patients where IL-2 has always had a challenge in being a well-tolerated drug.”

When phase II will take place is up to the success of Sentinel’s fundraising push. What we do know is that it will be led by Amir Jazaeri at MD Anderson Cancer Center. Part of the goal this summer is also to create an automated cell manufacturing process and prove that Sentinel can store its product long-term.

“This isn’t just another cell therapy,” Chakrabarti says.

"Sentinel's cytokine factory platform is the breakthrough technology that we believe has the potential to define the next era of cancer treatment," adds Wotton.

View All Listings