Lodge-style Frontier Coworking opens in Clive
By Micaela Cashman

Ben Sinclair was tired of working from home, but there were no coworking spaces near his house in Waukee. So he created his own.
“I was feeling isolated,” said Sinclair, who works in software development and digital marketing. “And my wife works remote, and she missed working in a real office.”
Sinclair also noticed that most of his neighbors had been working from home at least part of the week since the COVID-19 pandemic. And while return-to-work policies have ebbed and flowed, hybrid arrangements are becoming the most prevalent work situation in the nation, according to Gallup.
“If it wasn’t for the rise of remote work, I wouldn’t have considered this,” Sinclair said.
Sinclair and his wife, along with Sinclair’s brother, decided the need for a coworking space in Des Moines’ western suburbs was worth the risk.
Frontier Coworking, located at 13137 University Ave., Suite 120, in Clive, officially opened its doors in November 2024, and already Sinclair is seeing a potential need to expand.
“The offices went fast,” he said. “I didn’t expect that since they’re a higher-priced space. So we already need more office space.”
According to Coworking Cafe, there are more than 7,500 flex workspaces in the United States, as of May 2024. That’s a 7% quarter-over-quarter increase. It’s estimated that more than 1 million Americans use coworking spaces on a regular basis, and that number will only increase as remote work and flexible schedules become the norm.
Frontier Coworking provides multiple membership types based on how often workers want to come in and the amount of space and privacy needed.
Day passes and standard memberships allow workers to come in and grab an open seat for the day, whereas dedicated desk memberships include a reserved desk with locking file cabinets. Some memberships also grant access to the space’s conference room.
“Some people come in twice a week, some come in once a month, some just use the conference room for client meetings,” said Sinclair.
1 Million Cups, a free, national program that connects local entrepreneurs, will hold its weekly community events at Frontier Coworking in 2025. The Wednesday morning coffee meetups are a chance for entrepreneurs and local businesspeople to network and learn about new business ideas.
Sinclair said he is looking forward to the creative energy the organization and its events will bring to the space.
“It’s been a selling point to some of the new people coming in,” he said. “They’re looking for a community, and we’re excited to be building one out west.”
The space evokes the feeling of being in the wilderness with hunter green walls, vintage thermoses and suitcases, and a floor-to-ceiling forest mural adding to Frontier’s camping theme.
Sinclair said he and his wife enjoyed building the nature-inspired atmosphere together, collecting pieces from antique shops around the country and working with local muralist Nic Roth on one-of-a-kind artwork.
“We’re right by the Iowa Lottery building, which has kind of a lodge aesthetic, so we wanted to continue that in our space,” Sinclair explained. “Ultimately, we wanted to make this a place where people want to hang out — almost like a clubhouse.”
Rotating brews from local coffee shops, cozy places to sit and chat, and social events lure in remote workers, entrepreneurs and startups who are looking for something more unique than coworking franchises, Sinclair said.
“I looked into a chain coworking space a few years ago,” he said. “It felt stuffy to me. There wasn’t really an atmosphere there. I wanted to start a community of people that like to build stuff and have fun doing it.”
One local small business, Mod Advisor, occupies three of the designated office spaces. Founder Todd Thams said the chance to see what other small businesses and startups are doing at Frontier Coworking has helped him stay motivated and inspired in his own work.
Sinclair himself is not a stranger to entrepreneurship. On top of running Frontier Coworking, he also owns a retail automotive parts store in Hampton, Iowa, runs an app for the Iowa Craft Brew Festival and is a member of the Waukee City Council.
He said operating a coworking space allows him to be more hands-on and in-person, which was his top goal when he started thinking about Frontier Coworking.
“If I’m going to be sitting in an office, I want to have other people doing cool stuff around me,” he said. “I built myself a job, but it’s a job I want to do.”
Micaela Cashman is a freelance contributing writer for Business Record.