SPACE FOR STARTUPS: Bert Navarrete, general manager and managing partner at Tigerlabs, could skateboard through the sprawling space, former home of the Princeton Review, when it first opened earlier this year. (Photo by Moo Kim)

Technology has changed the contemporary workplace. These days, entrepreneurs launching small startup companies are as likely to be found “co-working” in shared spaces as they are in individual offices with the accompanying high overhead costs.

The trend has taken off in large American cities on both coasts. Recently, Princeton joined the list of locales offering shared space for budding entrepreneurs. A venture called Tigerlabs took the offices formerly occupied by the Princeton Review at 252 Nassau Street, and turned them into a wide-open, loft-style space with a vaulted ceiling and plenty of natural light.

In addition to the rows of desks at the rear of the 8,000-square foot spread, there are four conference rooms, some private phone rooms, lockers, a drinks machine, kitchen facilities, even showers. Members pay $300 a month for a desk, with no lease. So far, 50 have signed up and there is room for more.

The center is modeled after co-working spaces that general manager Bert Navarrete and his partners observed in New York and on the west coast.

“Nothing like this existed in town,” Mr. Navarrete said last week, seated with program director James Smits in comfortable swivel chairs at the front conference room. “We want to be the center of record for entrepreneurship in the town,” Mr. Smits added.

Both men grew up in Princeton. Mr. Navarrete, 36, went to the American Boychoir School and graduated from Harvard. Mr. Smits, 22, is a 2012 graduated of Princeton University. Their venture partners are Jason Glickman and Charlie Kemper, and senior advisor Tom Hawkins. On its website, the company counts 139 entrepreneurs and investors as mentors and advisors.

“We have had a lot of interest from executives in the town,” said Mr. Navarrete. “There are many who have a strong interest in paying it forward, and they’ve been volunteering to mentor companies we’re working with. A core aspect to all of this is mentorship. There is a tremendous amount of human capital in this area.”

Mentors come from diverse backgrounds, and all offer their services on a volunteer basis. Some might come in once a quarter, while others — mostly retired — show up at Tigerlabs every day.

Navarrete and partners first set up shop at 20 Nassau Street, at the other side of town. The six original entrepreneurs who signed up were people who had been “squatting at Panera or subletting from an architecture firm, all looking for space,” said Mr. Navarrete. As an experienced investor and entrepreneur himself, Mr. Navarrete had spent his share of hours flying back and forth to the west coast and wondering whether he could work just as efficiently from one place.

Tigerlabs acts as a seed fund as well as an entrepreneurship center, with an emphasis on innovation in the healthcare industry. The company currently runs two investment programs, Tigerlabs Health and Tigerlabs University, and last week hosted 175 people at a “demo day” for six companies sponsored by Tigerlabs Health. Its newest venture is the Innovation Track, which is offered in partnership with Merck and New York Presbyterian Hospital.

The company moved into its current headquarters last February. On a sunny morning last week, the space was starting to hum with activity. A group of youthful looking tenants in shorts and tee-shirts sat at desks, focused on their laptops. Another cluster chatted companionably, coffee cups in hand (Small World Coffee’s Nassau Street branch is next door). A slightly older man working at a desk behind a glass door was accompanied by his dog, who greeted a guest enthusiastically.

Tigerlabs offers startup education workshops and events that are open to the community. For the emerging start-up companies who call the sprawling space home, it offers a chance to network, collaborate, and meet potential investors. “We treat this as a long-term experiment,” said Mr. Navarrete. “It has to be a 10-year project. The analogy we like to use is that in the context of startups, what Stanford and Berkeley are to San Francisco, Princeton is to New York.”