The SaksWorks coworking The space in Greenwich, Connecticut, tucked into what was once a Saks Fifth Avenue department store, feels like a well-appointed library where no one reads: fireplace, overstuffed sofas, and large potted plants. When I got there on a Monday in March, the books lining each wall — grouped by color, not theme — provided an attractive backdrop to my Zoom afternoon meeting. There were a few rooms I could have booked to have a more private conversation, but the space was so sparsely populated it hardly seemed necessary.
SaksWorks was a kind of marriage of convenience between the retailer, who wants to repurpose some of its real estate as personal shopping dwindles, and WeWork, the fallen coworking giant that until recently controlled the space. (Saxon parent company Hudson’s Bay Co. has since invested heavily in Convene, a WeWork competitor that will take over.) The unlikely transformation also speaks to a quirky consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic: Today, an office could be anywhere. And every office feels more and more like a WeWork.
It’s a surprising twist. The WeWork collapse is legendary, or at least podcasts, books, a Hulu documentary, and an Apple TV+ series. The coworking pioneer had risen to a valuation of $47 billion in 2019 thanks to stylish, versatile office spaces and overzealous venture capital. But as the company prepared to go public that year, questions arose about its viability. Within weeks, Adam Neumann, the charismatic co-founder responsible for much of WeWork’s myths, was gone as CEO, the company’s valuation plummeted to $10 billion and the IPO was put on hold.
But while WeWork has become a cautionary tale, office life in the US has quietly embraced some of its core tenets. Many workers who have spent the past two years at home, a small fraction of the total workforce, are being recalled to offices that look different from the ones they left in 2020, with fewer desks and more open spaces designed to facilitate collaboration. promote. A survey by CBRE, a commercial real estate company, found that 51 percent of respondents expect flex space to make up a significant portion of their offices over the next two years. Even the US government is working on its own pilot coworking space called FlexHub for federal employees and contractors. Commercial landlords have also added coworking spaces to their buildings.
Those employees who don’t have a corporate office to report to also have the opportunity to co-work just about anywhere: high-end apartment complexes; Sojo, a Korean-style spa in New Jersey; and a music venue, bar, arcade and arts venue aimed at communities of color called 7th West in Oakland, not to mention WeWork and its many competitors, such as Industrious and Daybase. Even virtual coworking spaces have sprung up.
“The office is going through a major evolution,” said Paul Fiorilla, research director of Yardi Matrix, which analyzes commercial real estate. Employers, he says, now need employees to justify why they have to show up in person.
In a survey, LinkedIn found that 87 percent of its employees do want to go to the office — at least some of the time. The company lets employees and teams decide when to come in, and it’s redesigned its headquarters in Sunnyvale, California to emphasize meeting or open spaces above desks, said Shannon Hardy, vice president of flexible work at LinkedIn. It now includes amenities such as cafes open after meals and library-like ‘deep focus areas’.
