There are four new co-working spaces that have opened in Bendigo in the past year. Four. In a regional city that didn’t have any dedicated co-working facilities three years ago.

That’s not random. Something’s shifted in how regional professionals think about work, and the co-working boom is both a symptom and an accelerant of that change.

I spent a day visiting three of these spaces last week, talking to the people who run them and the people who use them. What I found wasn’t just about desks and wifi—though there’s plenty of both. It’s about the emergence of a professional culture that didn’t really exist in regional Victoria before.

More Than Just Hot Desks

The newest space, called Goldfields Workspace, opened in January in a renovated heritage building on Hargreaves Street. It’s got all the expected features: hot desks, private offices, meeting rooms, decent coffee.

But what’s interesting is who’s using it and why.

I met a graphic designer who moved back to Bendigo from Melbourne two years ago. She works for Melbourne clients but couldn’t justify the commute anymore. For the first year, she worked from home. It was fine, she said, but isolating.

Now she’s at Goldfields three days a week. Same clients, same work, but she’s surrounded by other professionals—accountants, marketers, software developers, consultants. People who aren’t in her field but understand professional work in a way that her friends and family don’t always.

That sense of professional community came up repeatedly. Regional Victoria has always had strong community networks. But professional networks? Those were harder to find unless you worked at one of the major employers or were involved in industry associations.

Co-working spaces are creating a different kind of gathering place. It’s not organized around industry or employer. It’s organized around a shared experience of professional work done remotely or independently.

The Technology Piece

What makes this work now, when it wouldn’t have worked five years ago, is infrastructure.

All four spaces have business-grade internet connections. That sounds basic, but it matters. When you’re running video calls with Melbourne or Sydney clients, or uploading large design files, or accessing cloud systems, you need reliable bandwidth.

The spaces are also set up with proper AV systems in meeting rooms, video conferencing equipment, and digital booking systems for rooms and desks. It’s meant to feel as professional as a corporate office, just more flexible.

One space, Innovate Central, has gone further. They’ve partnered with local tech companies to provide members with discounted access to cloud services, project management tools, and accounting software. Small stuff, but it adds up when you’re running a one-person consultancy or small agency.

The manager told me they see themselves as infrastructure providers, not just landlords. Their job is to remove the logistical friction that makes remote work harder than office work.

Who’s Actually Using These Spaces

The mix is more varied than I expected. There are the obvious groups—freelance designers, developers, consultants who work for distant clients. But there are also:

Regional employees of Melbourne companies who negotiated permanent remote arrangements and moved to Bendigo for lifestyle reasons. They use the co-working space because their employer won’t pay for a home office setup, and they want separation between work and home.

Small business owners who have offices elsewhere but use the co-working space for client meetings. One accountant told me it’s easier to meet clients at Goldfields than at his actual office, which is in a less central location. The space signals professionalism in a way that a home office or a café doesn’t.

People between jobs who are using the space while they search for their next role. The community aspect helps with networking, and it maintains work routines during what can otherwise be an unstructured period.

Government workers on flexible arrangements. This one surprised me. Apparently, several state government departments now allow regional staff to work from approved co-working spaces instead of requiring them to come into traditional offices.

The Economics Work Differently

In Melbourne, co-working space memberships run $400-600 per month for a hot desk. In Bendigo, the range is more like $200-350. Still not cheap, but manageable for someone who’s saving on Melbourne rent or has a reasonable client base.

For the space operators, the math is different too. Commercial rent in central Bendigo is a fraction of Melbourne CBD rates. Fit-out costs are lower. The spaces don’t need to have the design-forward aesthetic that Melbourne co-working brands compete on.

What they need is reliability, community, and decent amenities. The bar is different.

One operator told me their business model works at 60% occupancy, which would be brutal for a Melbourne equivalent. The lower cost base changes what’s viable.

What This Means for Regional Victoria

The broader effect is starting to show up in unexpected ways.

There’s a cohort of professionals in their thirties and forties who left regional Victoria for Melbourne in their twenties, built careers, and are now coming back. The co-working spaces give them somewhere to land professionally.

That matters for the regional economy. These aren’t people taking local jobs. They’re bringing Melbourne or Sydney income into the regional economy while living and spending here.

It’s also changing the professional culture. Bendigo has always had lawyers, accountants, and consultants. But they were often serving local clients with local scope. The co-working community includes people serving national clients, working on different kinds of problems, with different professional networks.

That creates knowledge spillover. The web developer overhears the marketing consultant’s client call and realizes there’s a local business need nobody’s serving. The accountant meets the startup founder and ends up advising three more.

This is the kind of professional ecosystem that cities are supposed to have, but that regional areas have struggled to develop.

Not Without Growing Pains

It’s not all positive. Some local businesses feel like the co-working trend is creating a two-tier professional class—those plugged into Melbourne networks and income, and those serving local markets at local rates.

There are also questions about how sustainable this is. If remote work policies tighten—and some companies are already pulling back—what happens to spaces that depend on regional employees of Melbourne firms?

And there’s a cultural adjustment. Bendigo’s professional culture has historically been more formal, more hierarchical. The co-working community tends to be more casual, more collaborative, more networked. That’s not automatically better, but it’s different, and differences create friction.

Where This Goes

My sense is that we’re still in the early stages. The four spaces that exist now are serving maybe 150-200 professionals total. That’s significant for Bendigo, but it’s not yet transformative.

What would be transformative is if this becomes the default option for a generation of professionals who don’t see “regional” and “professional career” as incompatible choices.

The co-working spaces are making that option visible and viable in a way it wasn’t before. You can live in Bendigo, work on nationally-significant projects, maintain professional networks, and have colleagues who understand what you do.

That’s new. And if it sticks, it changes what regional Victoria can be.