Sound the alarm: SIREN arrives in Portsmouth

Shared workspace for women opens near Green Grocer

By Jim McGaw
Posted 10/11/18

PORTSMOUTH — A shared workspace for professional women of all walks of life has opened in a converted 18th-century building at Benjamin Fish Commons, right next to the Green Grocer at 934 …

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Sound the alarm: SIREN arrives in Portsmouth

Shared workspace for women opens near Green Grocer

Posted

PORTSMOUTH — A shared workspace for professional women of all walks of life has opened in a converted 18th-century building at Benjamin Fish Commons, right next to the Green Grocer at 934 East Main Road.

SIREN Women’s Cooperative, LLC, which will also serve as a community space for professional and social coffee chats, community lectures and other programs, will hold its grand opening from 5-8 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 18.

“It primarily serves as a workspace and our mission is to work mindfully, connect meaningful and inspire endlessly,” said SIREN founder and director Sarah Nadimpalli.

SIREN, believed to be the co-working space in Portsmouth, joins a growing list of similar ventures. Spire Space in Middletown became Aquidneck Island’s first co-working space when it opened in 2016. Before that came The Hive in North Kingstown (2013) and Sprout RI in Providence (2015), which now has a second location in Warren.

Ms. Nadimpalli said the trend is filling a need in the modern internet age. 

“I think people crave greater connections in the physical form because things have become so web-based,” she said. “People’s work has become largely web-based, our connections, our social lives, our dating lives have become web-based. I think these sorts of spaces, and ours particularly for women, provide opportunities for people to really have a conversation, to talk about ideas and to be challenged instead of fighting online with somebody on a message board.”

A researcher with a Ph.D. in nursing and a flexible work schedule, Ms. Nadimpalli said the idea came to her while considering her own work and social needs.

“A lot of times I’ll work from home or a coffee shop, and what I’ve encountered was a feeling of being isolated at home and not feeling connected with other people,” she said. “And at the coffee shops, I was spending a lot of money on food and coffees I didn’t need and it was a less-than-ideal workspace. So I thought, why don’t we create one?”

As for the name? “SIREN just sought of struck me because it means sound the alarm — women are here,” she said, adding the name is also appropriate because “sirena” is Spanish for mermaid.

Ms. Nadimpalli, who lives near the Green Grocer and frequents the store often, always had her eye on the shingled structure — Building C — that some date to 1776. Several different ventures had been attempted in the building, which is owned by Green Grocer proprietor John Wood, but nothing really stuck.

“There’s been a number of people who have done things in here, but the energy just never felt right,” said Cynthia Fontaine, a psychic medium who owns SpiritGu.Ru and who recently signed on as a SIREN member.

But in July, Ms. Nadimpalli held an informal open house and 25 people showed up. Another 20 came out to a showing after that, she said, and a group of woman helped paint the place, brighten it up with new lighting and clean it out.

“Sight unseen, we had 14 women sign on” for a year’s membership. “That’s when I knew I tapped into a need.”

Among the women who came aboard was Suzanne Ramponi, who operates Roots and Wings for Kids. “I’m a life coach for women and children, so I’m always looking for places to network or even to use the space for workshops because that’s what I do. I jumped right on it. It’s very empowering and inspiring and I think there’s power in numbers when women get together,” she said.

Besides herself and Ms. Fontaine, the space is also shared by a Reiki practitioner, two Realtors, a lawyer, a professional organizer, a resident artist, a college planning consultant and others.

“All the members have different backgrounds; we’re all very unique in what we can bring,” said Ms. Ramponi, motioning around the upstairs work space which offers sweeping views of farmland rolling down to the Glen and the Sakonnet River. “When you work at home, you’re in a silo. It’s nice to come here, have a cup of coffee. You have your work space, you’re away from your home where there are distractions, and you have a very positive energy here.”

Pricing tiers range from a “social membership” that allows one full day of access per week for $75 a month, to $500 a month for a private entry office space. You can also rent the space for $30 an hour per level, or $60 and hour for the whole building. Day passes are available for $20 each.

Community connections

SIREN isn’t just a shared workspace. Ms. Nadimpalli also envisions it as a “community space for all women” — not just paying members — that will host lectures and programs to engage them in conversations about professional and social topics.

Having spent 10 years in Chicago before coming to Portsmouth, she said people in more-suburban areas tend to be “a little more factioned; they’re sort of in their own little bubbles but they’re curious about who’s outside of their bubble.”

That’s where SIREN comes into play, she said. 

“We have women like myself who work on computers and use earphones and this gives them a space to get out of the house and be around other women, have a coffee chat,” she said. “I think women want a vehicle to help them look outside their social circles, and SIREN can be that vehicle.”

For more information about SIREN, contact Sarah Nadimpalli at siren.cooperative@gmail.com or 773/569-0559 (e-mail preferred) for membership. You can also visit www.facebook.com/SirenCoOp.

SIREN, Green Grocer

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Meet our staff
Jim McGaw

A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.