By Kate Snyder
With the demand for flexible workspaces increasing in recent years, Seattle has emerged as one of the top markets when it comes to coworking. According to a recently released report from CoworkingCafe, which examined the coworking space stock availability throughout the country, Seattle was named #14 as one of the leading markets in terms of total square footage and #16 in terms of the number of coworking spaces.
“Demand for flexible workspaces registered significant growth in recent years, mainly due to the wider availability of remote work and hybrid workstyles,” the report states. “At the same time, the uncertain economic waves led many businesses to downsize their office footprints and move past rigid, long-term leases toward more flexible and cost-efficient solutions.”
The report, titled “State of the Industry Report: Coworking Spaces, Sizes, Distribution & Operators in America’s Top Markets,” breaks down the available stock of coworking space in the 25 largest markets, as well as the stock’s size and distribution. The most recent data was recorded in March and shows that the national coworking space stock had reached a total location count of 5,612, which totaled about 113.7 million square feet. Coworking space accounted for about 1.7 percent of the total office space nationwide.
The numbers in CoworkingCafe’s report represent a more than tenfold increase compared to the numbers detailed in a coworking report from JLL that analyzed the growth of coworking space from 2010 to 2017. JLL’s report, Coworking’s Unstoppable Market Growth, showed roughly 12 million square feet in flexible workspaces across the nation in 2010.
Based on the data used in the report, the Seattle market recorded 104 flexible workspaces and 2.4 million square feet in coworking space. Comparing the average square footage per market, Seattle came in ninth out of the 25 top markets with an average of approximately 23,490 square feet.
Seattle has seen recent rises in its coworking space.
Last year, The Pioneer Collective, a Seattle-based independent coworking and meeting space company, completed a 15-year lease on 14,000 square feet at the Tommer Building in the city’s Ballard neighborhood, according to The Registry’s previous reporting. The Tommer Building is located at 5101 14th Avenue NW.
The Pioneer Collective offers coworking spaces, meeting rooms, private offices, event space rentals and mail processing services. Its clients include membership companies, though hourly or daily rentals are also available to the public to rent meeting rooms and training spaces.
“Office users are shifting away from the downtown core and are placing hybrid teams and remote employees closer to residential neighborhoods with attractive retail, food, and beverage options,” said Chris Hoyt, The Pioneer Collective co-founder, at the time of the leasing announcement.
From CoworkingCafe’s report, other top markets for coworking space included Manhattan, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Chicago and Dallas-Fort Worth. As number one, Manhattan came in with 13.6 million square feet of total coworking space, approximately twice that of second place Los Angeles’ 6.8 million square feet in coworking space. At the other end of the spectrum, Fort Lauderdale came in at the bottom with just 1.3 million square feet in coworking space – less than one-tenth of Manhattan’s total. Rounding out the bottom three places, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Kansas City both totaled almost 1.4 million square feet.
The report also showed which companies recorded the most amount of coworking space throughout the country. Those at the top included Regus, WeWork, Industrious and Spaces. Regus, WeWork and Industrious had more than half of their total inventory in the 25 largest markets while Spaces had significantly more offices outside of these markets. Just 28 percent of Spaces’ total portfolio was located within the top 25 regions.
