The Mill Makerspace Closes

Minneapolis lost a great maker’s resource yesterday when The Mill‘s Brian Boyle announced its closure:

Since opening February 1, 2012, The Mill has been host to 90 members and 306 participants in classes ranging from soap making and sewing to Arduino microcontrollers and build your own 3D printer. Amazingly talented people have given their time and effort to build an incredible community. So many of you have built lasting relationships here, to the point where it becomes obvious The Mill’s tools may be what attracted everyone, but a compulsion to learn, hack, improve and understand is really what The Mill has been about.

Unfortunately, I am writing to you all today to inform you that The Mill will be closing its doors permanently April, 20, 2013.

I had a chance to work at the Mill the past couple of months and I enjoyed greatly the environment Brian and his collaborators created, as well as the tools and other resources the Mill provided. One thing Brian and I talked about was how the Mill complemented other maker resources in the city, and it was true: the artists and engineers who made their home at the Mill loved the unique configuration of tools as well as the mellow and clean working environment. Unfortunately, it seems that despite a noble effort on the members’ part, the space was never was able to build up enough members to keep its doors open.

In any case, friends and members are encouraged to open up Wednesday nights for the next 3 weeks to socialize and plot how to continue building the Twin Cities’ maker community. Existing members are welcome to schedule time on the space’s laser cutter, CNC, and so on until the 20th.