Basekamp in Philadelphis is a possible model:
http://www.basekamp.com/

Also 16 Beaver here in New York is another possibility:
http://www.16beavergroup.org/

Both, I think, are maintained mainly by the residents.

LMCC is mandated to help support this kind of project though as far as I've seen they tend to support things like 3-Legged Dog and Collective Unconscious where the space can be rented out for performances and parties. "A great mind share space" is a little hard to explain to their funders, who want something audience oriented they can account for on a spread sheet. We had the opportunity to show them what we needed at Maiden Lane for six months but nobody was interested in doing it on a short-term basis. Nsumi, down the hall, was closer to your idea though they, too, were accepted because they were totally audience-centered even though the audience, in this case, was other artists.

Still, your plan has a certain "creative class" angle to it that investors might find interesting and we could avoid the whole non-profit approach. The problem with that is the space would be expected to produce marketable products.

Creative Capital should support this but I doubt they'd understand even though, Andy Warhol whose foundation supports it, would understand perfectly.

The best thing to do is write a simple proposal and start talking it up to see who bites.

WorkSpace in Vancouver

WorkSpace is a freshly renovated Gastown loft providing a collective of small business and independent professionals with a facility that they wouldn’t be able to afford on their own. Inspired by the trend of working in Café’s, the space is funky, professional and inexpensive. Rather than asking our customers to sign a lease, they join the space as members.

WorkSpace has all the facilities you’ll need to get things done:
-Wireless E-10 Internet Connection
-Large Tables and Designer Seating
-Meeting and Conference Rooms
-Digital Projector
-Colour, Black & White Printing and Scanning
-Faxing, Shipping and Receiving
-Cell Phone Privacy Booths
-Storage Space
-Kitchen Facility

The view, atmosphere and phenomenal coffee all go without saying.

Relative to office space, the cost and commitment is very low…the average price of joining Workspace is only $310 per month. You can join for as short a time period as one month, and you can come in with your laptop and get to work right away. If your current work environment is less than perfect, read more about why we think you should become a member.

There is more information about our facility and services under membership.
Already convinced? Download our membership package.

http://abetterplacetowork.com/about

Basekamp in Philadelphis

BASEKAMP is a non commercial studio and exhibition space whose primary focus is to participate in the creation, facilitation and promotion of large scale collaborative projects by contemporary artists. Philadelphia is an example of a city whose visual art-world is currently in the process of self-definition. We have seen this as an opportunity to use the city as a home base to invite domestic and international collaborative groups in a joint experiment to develop new models of relations within overlapping art communities.

http://www.basekamp.com/bk_space/about.html

16 Beaver Group in New York

16Beaver is the address of a space initiated/run by artists to create and maintain an ongoing platform for the presentation, production, and discussion of a variety of artistic/cultural/economic/political projects. It is the point of many departures/arrivals.

MONDAY NIGHTS @ 16BEAVER

Since 1999, the Reading Group at 16Beaver has organized presentations, readings, discussions, screenings, and panels with/by artists, curators, thinkers, writers, and activists.

Monday nights are an evening to share time and generate discussions, links, ideas. Meetings usually begin at 7pm and the location is almost always at 16Beaver Street, 5th Floor.

RESIDENTS

16BEAVER is an independent self-sustaining project. The Residents of the space maintain the space by using it as their place of work/work/activities. Residents include: Project Projects, Ayreen Anastas, Rene Gabri, Peter Lueders, Berry Behrendt, Tim Peterson, Alwan.

http://16beavergroup.org/about/

Orchard in New York

Orchard is a cooperatively organized exhibition and event space in New York's Lower East Side. The gallery is run by twelve partners of a for-profit limited liability corporation founded for the project. The partners include artists, filmmakers, critics, art historians, and curators, with several combining these activities in their practices. The partners of Orchard have been associated variously with New York experimental film and video scenes, institutional critique, 90s non-yBa practices in Britain, and political conceptualist traditions in North and South America. The partners do not have a univocal position in terms of their working methods or views on art. Instead, Orchard's cooperative framework is intended to put the diversity of its members' practices into discursive motion. The resulting exhibition program reflects these dialogs and the social, geographical and artistic conditions and contradictions of the positions taken within them. Orchard's program eschews solo exhibitions in favor of thematically, conceptually and politically driven group exhibitions and projects. It also represents a commitment to historically-based artistic criteria, as opposed to market criteria. This commitment is reflected in Orchard's trans-generational mixing of established artists with lesser known artists, and its re-examination of marginalized historical works in the context of contemporary issues and practices. Since opening in May 2005, Orchard has restaged or produced unrealized projects by Michael Asher, Andrea Fraser with Allan McCollum, Dan Graham, and Lawrence Weiner. Orchard has also presented historical works by Daniel Buren, Luis Camnitzer, Juan Downey, Hans Haacke, Roberto Jacoby, Adrian Piper, and Martha Rosler, as well as new works by Merlin Carpenter, Nicolás Guagnini, Jutta Koether, Lucy McKenzie, Blake Rayne, Stephan Pascher, Jeff Preiss, R.H. Quaytman, Karin Schneider, and Jason Simon, among others. Orchard is a three-year project and is scheduled to close in April 2008.

http://www.orchard47.org/