Entrepreneur Tom Root, a partner in Zingerman's Mail Order, is co-owner of a new venture called Maker Works, which offers people the chance to pay for access to tools that make manufacturing small products easier.

Janet Miller | For AnnArbor.com

Maker Works — a membership driven, 11,000-square-foot open-access workshop that offers tools, space and community to makers — anyone from roboteers to quilters — officially opened today in an industrial park near the Ann Arbor Municipal Airport and close to Zingerman's Bakehouse on Plaza Drive.

The startup is owned by Dale Grover and Tom Root, a managing partner at Zingerman's Mail Order.

Maker Works provides various tools — including some very expensive devices — for use in manufacturing or fixing devices.

Janet Miller | For AnnArbor.com

“It’s going to be run like a health club,” Root said. “But instead of treadmills, we’ll have mills. Instead of elliptical machines we’ll have elliptical sanders. Some people meet at bars, others at health clubs. This is a place for the maker set.”

Maker Works targets inventors, engineers, entrepreneurs, hobbyists, artists and crafters, electronic geeks and others. Root co-owns Maker Works with Grover, who founded A2 MechShop, a Scio Township co-working facility for entrepreneurial engineers and companies like startup Current Motor Co.

Maker Works has a broader appeal than A2 MechShop and has four domains, Root said: circuits, crafts/textiles, wood and metal. Each domain has at least one anchor tool, an expensive piece of equipment that is cost-prohibitive to most individuals that will serve as a magnet for membership.

“The draw is the big-gun tools,” Root said. “But once you’re here, you want to finish your project so we’ve filled it out with hundreds of other tools.” Those include everything from band saws to ironing boards along with a computer-inventoried tool crib.

Maker Works was inspired by TechShop, a similar concept started in Menlo Park a few years ago, Root said.

It's part of a national movement in which small-scale manufacturing is being made more accessible to entrepreneurs and citizens with an innovative idea or need.

Classes will be offered, including a mandatory class to test competency on the machinery. Classes could include anything from making cabinet doors to stereo speakers, Root said. Maker Works could appeal to the do-it-yourselfer who wants to fix their lawn mower or the electronics whiz who wants to create a computer-controlled fertilizing system for their lawn. There is also a retail shop that sells parts and tools from resistors and diodes to embroidery needles.

It had a soft opening today, with 75 percent of the operation up and running. It will be at full speed, with all the tools in place, in the fall, Root said, when a grand opening is planned.

To break even, Maker Works will have to maintain 200 monthly memberships, Root said, and the facility has the capacity to accommodate 800 to 900 monthly members, he said.

Root said he wants to bring together people trained in the trades with entrepreneurs and with students, who no longer have access to this kind of hands-on learning.

“Southeast Michigan has made a huge investment in training people in the manufacturing setting and in the last three years they’ve been cut loose. That investment, that training has nowhere to go,” he said. “I want to connect them with makers, who have the potential to start a business or to employ them. And then I want to connect these two groups with students. There’s no more shop class being offered. There’s no chance to students to touch equipment.”

Maker Works combines new and old technologies and concepts: It offers the chance to hone old-fashioned skills such as turning a wooden bowl or sewing a dress, but with modern twists: The electronics lab has a PCB etcher for making circuit boards, a laser cutter for cutting anything from quilting fabric to greeting cards and a computer-controlled embroidery machine that allows for 16 colors of thread at a time. There’s also a computer-controlled mill for cutting metal and a computer-controlled ShopBot for cabinet, furniture and sign makers.

“This is a new idea that enables a very old idea,” Root said. “I tell people there’s nothing virtual about this place.”

Maker Works, located at 3765 Plaza Dr., will be open from 1-9 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Cost for an individual membership is $35 a day, $90 a month or $900 a year.

Janet Miller is a freelance reporter for AnnArbor.com.