How The Wedge Supports Business Owners and Community Members

Our Daily Show Interview! The Wedge: Upcoming Events, Opportunities, and More!

ALTON - The Wedge in downtown Alton is officially open, and the CEO and Community Manager expressed their excitement to share the space with the community.

CEO J. Scot Heathman and Community Manager Stephanie Schrage spoke about the benefits of The Wedge’s coworking space and how The Wedge is helping people connect. They believe the building is a great place to learn from one another, grow your business, and engage with the community.

“We’re not a library, so we’re not going to be shushing people. We’re not a coffee shop, though we do get great coffee,” Heathman joked. “We kind of blend all of that together. We try to make sure we have resources. However, we’re also letting the community in the door.”

The Wedge offers coworking space, office space, conference rooms and more. The building’s offices are currently 50% occupied. A TikTok influencer and a horror movie company are renting space alongside financial planners, construction consultants and real estate professionals.

Heathman and Schrage believe this variety is a strength. They encourage these individuals to connect and learn from one another.

“We play this living LinkedIn and we connect these people. Next thing you know, they’re helping each other. That’s sort of the essence of what this place is designed to do,” Heathman explained. “We want diversity of business because you get those people in the building talking during lunchtime or after hours. We have had probably the funnest time with them on the fringes in these break times.”

As a coworking space, The Wedge allows people to rent space on a daily, monthly or yearly basis. They have several amenities available in addition to the coworking hubs where individuals can work on their own businesses or projects. Heathman and Schrage believe this provides a great opportunity for entrepreneurs to have support.

“You stack the deck as best you can, especially if you’re starting a new career or you’re trying to retool yourself and work on personal growth, or maybe it is starting a business,” Heathman said. “You cannot go into these things alone. Google will only help you so much.”

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) is also stationed at The Wedge as the building’s “anchor tenant.” As a partner, SIUE is focused on geospatial and predictive analytics. Heathman said SIUE’s presence in The Wedge is “a gamechanger,” and he invited more members of the SIUE team to join The Wedge.

He added that The Wedge hopes to do more with artificial intelligence in the future, though they’re still defining what this will look like.

“Let’s start by asking the very first question: What do we want it to do and for whom and for what reason? Let’s get the end state right and then let’s build on that instead of coming up with this grand concept and really not understanding where we’re going with it,” Heathman said. “It’s not dead. It may come back with a different name, in a different form, but we want to get a little bit more focused.”

In the meantime, The Wedge will continue offering deals for their coworking and office spaces. They invite community members to come out, tour the building, and give it a try.

“The more people come in for these types of things, the more they’re going to see what value The Wedge can really add,” Schrage added.

For more information about The Wedge, visit their official Facebook page or their official website at TheWedgeAlton.com.

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