IWG Bringing Coworking Back To Another Former WeWork
IWG is opening a 38K SF coworking location, Spaces Downtown Los Angeles, in square footage previously occupied by WeWork at Downtown LA's historic Fine Arts Building.
Spaces Downtown LA is on the building's ninth through 12th floors, as well as the penthouse.
This isn't the first location formerly owned by WeWork that IWG has opened this year. It took over 31K SF in West Hollywood that had previously housed a 48K SF WeWork location. It is also taking over other brands’ former coworking facilities as it expands across the U.S.
IWG says the new location opening comes as return-to-office plans increasingly include some kind of hybrid model that allows for work to be done somewhere that isn't a corporate office.
“People increasingly want to live, work and socialize without having to spend hours commuting,” IWG CEO Mark Dixon said in a statement. “Companies are meeting these new expectations from employees by taking advantage of the many competitive benefits that hybrid brings, including reduced costs, improved productivity and increased talent retention.”
About 41.5% of LA metro office workers are back in the office, according to the latest numbers from Kastle Systems, which tracks keycard and fob entries at 2,600 buildings across the country. That is up from 40.9% in mid-April but below the national average of 43.4%.
The 1920s-built Fine Arts Building was a major location for WeWork when it opened. The coworking company signed a 15-year lease for more than six floors in the 12-story building in 2014, the Los Angeles Times reported at the time. The coworking company agreed to pay $34 per SF in rent, the LA Times reported. When it debuted, the Fine Arts Building was WeWork's second location in LA.
It is unclear when WeWork shuttered the location, but as of August 2021, the location was no longer showing up on WeWork's website as a location, and a company representative confirmed to Bisnow that its coworking space was no longer active there. The company began shuttering locations as it re-evaluated its portfolio in the wake of its failed 2019 IPO, and the pandemic led to further closures. It went public in October and has made some recent expansions, especially via acquisition, as it aims to reach profitability.
