Room for co-working in COVID-19 era

With many going from a downtown office to a pandemic home office, what room is left for coworking spaces? One business says people want to put their pants on again and go out for work.

CALGARY (CityNews) – Pandemic home offices are the norm but after a summer inside, one business said people want to put on pants and get out for work again.

At the height of health restrictions, revenue was down 70 per cent for WorkNicer, which has co-working spaces in Calgary and Edmonton.

“This different way of work was already trending that way and I think COVID has just shoved up that learning curve,” said founder Alex Putici.

“Companies that are making people work at home right now, are actually just making them live at work and so I think people are really looking at this as a third-place to send their team.”

Attendance is back up, but WorkNicer is trying to boost it further with membership credits and hopes shifting office culture will bring new business.

A third-quarter report from the CBRE said Calgary’s downtown office vacancy rate sits at 28.7 per cent.

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“Lot of leases are long term leases so presidents and CEOs have not made the decision right now as far defining a trend of reducing their office space,” said Greg Kwong with CBRE Alberta.

“Certainly, it’s the elephant in the room. The discussion is ‘do we need to go back to the office?’ 100 per cent.”

Offices started emptying out in the core five years ago, with slumping oil prices and recent mergers like Cenovus’s $23 billion planned purchase of Husky will make things worse.

However, the CBRE doesn’t expect to see a COVID-19 impact until the summer.

“I’ve heard contrasting discussions. On one hand, we don’t any more space, we need less. On the other hand, some presidents are going ‘well I’ll actually need more space even if there’s a cure now,” said Kwong.

Putici started WorkNicer around the same time as the oil crash and co-working spaces have been popping up around the city since then.

“The ones that will survive are the ones that are really focused on culture, community and the actual human beings that work out of there,” Putici said.

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