“You can’t print at a coffee shop,” jokes Duke Dodson, one of the five owners of Gather, the new co-working space at 4th and Main Streets. “That’s what we’re hanging our hat on.”

The 23,000-square-foot complex at 409 E. Main St., teeming on the edge of full-blown business incubator, opened this spring, and since then has built a roster of clients: Knox Payments, the new online billing startup, videographers humanstory, sound service Overcoast, the NPR podcast “Love and Radio,” and almost a full range of essential business services from accountants to lawyers to software developers.

Small businesses and entrepreneurs can rent table space, cubicles, or even entire offices. Prices start at $250 a month and include 24/7 access, utilities, gym, Internet, Black Hand coffee—and, yeah, they have printers, too.

Dodson’s own Dodson Property Management occupies the building’s second floor (third if you count the finished basement). Dodson founded his business in 2007, which is now a 20-person residential property management company branching out into commercial services.

“I wish this existed seven years ago because this is exactly where I would have come,” Dodson says. “We want to target all the small businesses that other small businesses need—the web designers, graphics guys, HR consultants. Our target is small business and startups, or even the folks who work from home—but then instead of working from a coffee shop or home you can work from here a few days a week.”

In gathering ideas for Gather, the ownership group, including Dodson, Doug and Polly White, Andy Beach, and Jeff Bunch, visited co-working plots in Denver, New York, Washington, and Charlottesville. “We tried to incorporate all the things we liked in the space,“ Dodson says.

In addition to chic meeting areas, other unique features include the gym, the kegerator, Black Hand coffee, telephone booth-sized rooms for phone privacy with windows frosted with British-style phone box artwork, interior garage doors that separate a meeting room from more communal kitchen (“I will take credit for that idea, yes,” Dodson says), a backlit Gather sign made from reclaimed wood by Boomhitch design group and architectural company Wellborn + Wright, and a series of original photographs from a local photographer printed on Masonite board and coated in surfboard wax. “We’re trying to use as many local businesses as we can, and support the Richmond folks,” Dodson says.

Martin Montgomery and his business partner ran their film business humanstory from their homes for the past three years. But the work got a little lonely. “I am very much a people person and actually get inspired by hearing others’ stories,” Montgomery says. “By entering the Gather space, we have been able to make connections with people outside of our field that have challenged us to take their stories and see how it may apply to our own business. We like the direction Gather is headed and we are excited to continue to meet new people and branch out into the RVA community.”

The vision of Gather’s ownership is for the downtown location to someday serve as the hub for smaller Gathers around the Greater Richmond area. Then its members could, for example, meet clients at a nearby Gather instead of a nearby Panera Bread. “As it continues to grow, I think it will go in the direction that members want it to go, so if they want more locations in Richmond, that’s what we would do,” he says.

James Crenshaw was hired as Gather’s managing director in January. Through his other business, Experience-RVA, Crenshaw organized the Boulevard Pumpkin Festival and has made a career connecting individuals and organizations—a big draw for Dodson and team. “We want to be a part of this community and we want to make it easier for people who are thinking about starting their own business,” Crenshaw says. “We want to have everything ready for them, so that when they come in here they can network with everybody that will help them get to that next step.”

And eventually, Dodson adds, he hopes members outgrow Gather and have the need for a larger space that Gather can’t provide. That’s when the businessman in him kicks in again: “And we’d love to develop that for them. We’ll buy their space, renovate it, and lease it to them. That’s another long-term plan. Anyway, that’s a different story.