Co-able brought accessibility to Port Adelaide — next, it’ll be the nation

Key points:

• Disability advocate Shane Hryhorec is making Port Adelaide into a hub of accessibility through his ongoing efforts to develop inclusive spaces

• The Push Mobility founder made the Fringe Festival pop-up bar Confession a permanent fixture in Port Adelaide, featuring an innovative wheelchair dancefloor

• Mr Hryhorec teased the new Co-able gym facility on Monday, October 23, in a Facebook post, shared to the local community group

Shane Hryhorec has set his sights on a new target in his ongoing quest to transform Port Adelaide — inclusive gyms are on their way to Adelaide’s western suburbs.

After that, the Co-able founder is looking to take this idea across Australia, offering an accessible future for the nation through the success of and great community response to the company.

Mr Hryhorec founded Push Mobility in 2013 to offer people with disabilities better quality equipment with more attractive designs and better functionality. Since then, the serial entrepreneur has carried that same ethos into a range of projects that have shaped a more inclusive future in Port Adelaide.

Confession, a popular pop-up bar and Fringe Festival fan favourite, was brought to life by Shane earlier this year, as a permanent and ongoing venue for people who live with disability to get out and enjoy a cocktail or performance.

“It’s been great, the community has responded to it very well,” Shane said.

“People like the fact that there are more options and more choices in Port Adelaide […] it’s a bit more of a mature crowd in from six o’clock to 10 o’clock — they’re watching cabaret, watching bands, listening to music, enjoying great food and then we’ve got the kids coming in at 10pm to two [in the morning] to party.

Prior to Confession, Mr Hryhorecc had launched Co-able — a fully accessible co-working space that sits alongside a range of other providers, such as allied health and employment services.

“Co-able is its own identity and brand,” he explained.

“Co-able is a hub for providers providing services for people with disability and the Co-able fitness is a part of the Co-able offering. So, the idea is that every time we open up a Co-able, it’ll have the same structure, so it will have different shared working environments for different organisations and also have a gym.

Shane said the gym itself has equipment specialised for people with disability, including a $15,000 dollar foot-pedal machine that uses electrodes to assist people with bike riding, which is apparently great for muscle tone. He added that the gym isn’t exclusively designed for people with disability, but for everyone to use.

The Co-able founder said that he intends to launch the gym to the public in the next two to three weeks and the team are just putting the final touches on it, with testing to ensure that everything works as intended.

Shane told Talking Disability journalist David McManus that the gym would be a welcome addition to the Co-able facility on Marryatt Street.

In 2016, Shane created Accessible Beaches, which spawned a not-for-profit organisation in 2020, registered as a charity dedicated to bringing the beach experience to everyone — regardless of any requirements they may have.

“Now that this building is almost finished, I’ll take some time off and then we’ll start looking for our next site and that will probably be around Australia, so we’ll probably look towards Perth, Tasmania or Sydney for the next one,” Mr Hryhorec added.

“The idea is to have approximately, y’know, maybe a hundred of these [Co-able facilities] around Australia in the next few years.”

Do you believe that more needs to be done to bring accessibility across Australia? Let the team at Talking Disability know!