FWIW, the major makerspace in my area--or what was the major makerspace--was a lot like that. A couple of people didn't like that and started a new one, with myself and my wife coming on board almost right away. It took a long time and I'm not sure our story can be easily replicated, but we're now the bigger of the two in terms of space and membership size.

But like I said, Covid was a brick wall for our social aspects.