Work-sharing spaces are experiencing a resurgence of popularity, and these brands seem especially interested in filling newly vacant spaces in malls and mixed-use retail assets. Retail property owners enjoy having these co-sharing brands as tenants because of the increased guaranteed foot traffic throughout all hours of the day and night, especially for its restaurants, bars, entertainment venues, and even grocery and office supply stores. Look for co-sharing brand Industrious and Ohio-based COhatch to open within malls and retail spaces. Even Switzerland-based International Workplace Group’s (IWG) co-working brands Spaces and No18 will take up retail units in the states. Also keep an eye out for Texas brand Common Desk to expand its reach into retail districts. The work-from-home norm has amplified this need for shared office space chains to proliferate, especially to appease those cautious workers who want a work environment away from the distractions of their own residence, but without the long commute to a cramped, downtown office setting. Plus, more companies are adapting satellite offices to accommodate those employees that are remaining socially distanced from the main office, and these flexible office brand options are ideal for this purpose.
Though the Bespoke event venue brand started the “co-working space in mall” trend when it opened its location within the Westfield San Francisco Centre shopping mall back in 2015, it was Industrious that really took charge of filling empty space in shopping centers, starting with its first mall unit at the Macerich-owned Scottsdale Fashion Square in Arizona last year. This was followed by a 47,000-s.f. unit at the Fashion District Philadelphia, co-owned by PREIT, as well as the Broadway Plaza Mall in Walnut Creek, Calif., that opened in March of this year. Now Industrious is considering planning an IPO within the next two years and will continue expanding into mall spaces with the $80M it raised from various investors, including Brookfield Properties and Equinox, the latter because it wants to continue developing co-office spaces inside its gyms with the brand, as it did with its Hudson Yards unit in New York City. Look for Brookfield-owned malls to house future Industrious units. Industrious is also in a well-positioned place during this pandemic, as the brand negotiated with its landlords to pay a percentage of their revenue rather than a monthly lease amount.
In mid-2021 Industrious will be in a 27,000-s.f. space within a mixed-use development, Carmel City Center in Carmel, Ind., through its partnership with the developer, Pedcor Companies. Retail co-tenants will include Old Spaghetti Factory and Graeter’s Ice Cream. Later this year Industrious will occupy 25,000 s.f. of space at Taubman Centers’ Cherry Creek Shopping Center in Denver. This will take over space formally occupied by Which Wich, Panda Express and Johnny Rockets, all of which will move to a new space within the mall. This follows two previous Taubman Center units that opened last year: a 30,000-s.f. space at the Mall at Short Hills in Millburn, N.J., and a 30,000-s.f. space at Country Club Plaza, a retail mixed-district co-owned by Macerich in Kansas City, Mo.
Industrious will also occupy at least five former Sears spaces in shopping centers, through its deal with Seritage Growth Properties. The co-sharing brand’s first space in this Seritage deal will be a 29,000-s.f. unit opening by late 2020/early 2021 at the University Town Center’s new mall development section, called The Collection at UTC, in La Jolla, Calif. Equinox will also be a part of this new development. Another space in this same deal will be a 30,000-s.f. unit in Miami’s Esplanade at Aventura open air shopping development, expected to open by early to mid-2021. The development will also house Pinstripes, a bowling/bocce/dining entertainment venue.
COhatch expects to open up to 30 more of its co-working hubs as it expands throughout Ohio and into new states, including ten locations in Indiana over the next five years. The brand is shopping for potential new spaces within the suburbs of Pittsburgh, Detroit and throughout the Carolinas and Florida. COhatch looks for space that is on average around 10,000 s.f., within communities that have a workplace population between 10,000 and 15,000. COhatch tends to open up as many as ten units at each new destination.
Working with Simon Property Group, COhatch opened its first Indiana unit last month, a 7,000-s.f. space next to an Old Navy in the Hamilton Town Center in Noblesville, a suburb of Indianapolis. COhatch is also in the midst of renovating a 9,580-s.f. ground-floor unit at the former Granite City Food & Brewery space at the indoor Circle Centre Mall, also a Simon-owned property, in downtown Indianapolis. As COhatch is also concentrating on further expansion into Cleveland, its first unit there will be a 10,000-s.f. unit at the former Charming Charlie women’s boutique in the Legacy Village shopping center in the suburb of Lyndhurst, expected by the end of the year.
This is on the heels of its first inline retail unit that opened on a street-front space last month is Easton, Ohio, another former Charming Charlie space, at a smaller footprint of 5,000 s.f. For this unit, COhatch constructed a 3,500-s.f. second floor to add more space.
In September, IWG opened its first luxury co-working brand in the states, ca lled No18, with 27,957 s.f. of space taking up the ground floor and second level of a building that makes up part of the upscale Buckhead Village District retail shopping area, the uptown commercial and residential district in Atlanta. The outdoor shopping district also includes such tenants as Hermès, Jimmy Choo and Shake Shack. Also in Georgia, IWG’s Spaces brand will open a 27,000-s.f. inline unit in the North Point mall in Alpharetta in December 2021. The space will be located between an AMC and a Von Maur store. Even though IWG has plans to continue opening more mall/ retail co-working spaces, expect these openings to occur outside of metropolitan cities that were adversely affected by coronavirus closures, as 90 of its co-spaces under the Regus brand, primarily centered in urban areas in the Northeast, hav e filed for bankruptcy protection within the last four months.
Common Desk, which found success expanding its co-sharing concept throughout its home state of Texas, will now expand into the new state of North Carolina with a 28,423-s.f. unit in Raleigh’s new East End Market mixed-use development, developed by SLI Capital and Atlas Stark Holdings. It is expected to be complete by late 2020/early to mid-2021. Potential future growth within the Carolinas is a possibility for Common Desk. While growing the co-working concept in Texas, Common Desk acquired the brands Gym of Social Mechanics, a boutique gym, and Fiction Coffee (formerly Method Coffee), the latter of which will also take up space as a retail e stablishment in the Raleigh co-office space. This co-office company expects future growth into mixed-use buildings to include these two brands to add value to the space for a fun “corporate campus” f eel. Common Desk is also planning to open a 12,000-s.f. storefront unit near a Trader Joe’s in a building along the retail shopping street on the Lower G reenville section of Dallas by late 2020/early 2021. Common Desk specifically seeks space in up-and-coming neighborhoods that have favorable walkability and great retail visibility.
