There are clear winners and losers in the postpandemic office market, and it looks like Industrious is squarely in the first category.
Rightsizing and the flight to quality have been good to the coworking company: It is on the brink of reopening the second floor of its Two Liberty Place Philadelphia location that fell victim to the crisis and is on its way to 50 new locations by the end of 2026.
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“It’s a really great rebound from where we were in the Philadelphia market 24 months ago,” said Industrious East Coast Regional Director Kevin Jung as the company prepared to celebrate its 10th anniversary this week at its oldest continuously operating location on the corner of Broad and Locust streets in Philadelphia.
Leases for the space, opening July 1, have already been inked, and Industrious General Manager Chris Caron expects it to be 50% full within six months.
The company’s expansion in Philly was far from a foregone conclusion when it shrank its footprint at Two Liberty Place in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic as demand for office space plummeted.
Overall office demand is still down, but the rise of hybrid work schedules has increased interest in smaller, more flexible office spaces where businesses can split the cost of amenities like food and beverages and front desk support.
“The landlord knows our value and gave us a great option to expand in that space at no risk for us,” Caron said of the company’s arrangement at Liberty Place.
Industrious is not leasing the space from owner Coretrust Capital Partners.
“This is more of a management agreement where the two parties split the profits,” Caron said.
When Industrious opened a decade ago, its portfolio included just four coworking spaces. But as it celebrated the anniversary with a party Wednesday night, the company had grown to roughly 200 locations worldwide.
Though Industrious hasn’t announced plans for any additional expansions in Philadelphia at this time, Jung said the company has 500M SF of space in the pipeline and plans to open 50 new locations by the end of 2026.
That includes several locations in New York City, Boston and Washington, D.C., which CoworkingCafe identified as one of the top five largest markets for the sector in its first-quarter report.
The push comes after Industrious was purchased outright by CBRE earlier this year. The firm previously held a 40% stake in the company.
But Industrious is not without competitors. CoworkingCafe found that Industrious is the third-largest coworking company in the 50 largest U.S. markets behind Regus and HQ.
WeWork also recently emerged from bankruptcy with a much smaller footprint and tech support from Yardi Systems, which now owns 60% of the company.
“It means that what we’re doing is working,” said Jung, who added that he’s seen more coworking competitors follow its lead of striking less traditional leases with landlords instead of simply renting space from them.
“It’s good that we have healthy competition in our industry,” Caron said.
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