Images: Old fire station being reborn as—yes—coworking space

Across metro Atlanta, retired or outdated fire stations have been refashioned as restaurants, a brewery, and potentially soon, high-rise affordable housing in Midtown.

Now, a Cobb County initiative is putting an aged firehouse to work in a different, more philanthropic way.

Nonprofit organization CobbWorks broke ground Thursday on the transformation of Mableton’s shuttered Fire Station 1 into a facility called the Cobb Work Source Center and Coworking Space.

Deemed to be at the end of its useful lifecycle, the 5656 Mableton Parkway fire station closed four years ago when the fire department moved to a new, larger facility.

CobbWorks has partnered with design-build firm MAPP-PGAL for the adaptive-reuse project, which aims to create a cutting-edge facility “designed to build talent pipelines for employers, nurture entrepreneurship, and address the unique needs of underserved communities,” according to project leaders.

Free services and resources will be offered to residents and small businesses CobbWorks determines to be of the highest needs. That will include Wi-Fi, a computer lab, incubation, business coaching, professional development workshops, literacy services, employment placement, and other services.

Estimated to cost about $4 million, the coworking hub will be CobbWorks’ second workforce development center in the county. The 10,000-square-foot facility is scheduled to open quickly—sometime this summer, according to CobbWorks officials.

CobbWorks leaders say contributions and support from Cobb County Commissioners, the Mableton Improvement Coalition, and the Cobb County Fire Department, among others, have made the project feasible.

Find a closer look at interior and exterior renovation plans in the gallery above.

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