Why coworking space could see an uptick in Chicago - With Commentary from Ryan Harding
Coworking spaces are likely to become more popular in a post-pandemic environment, according to a commercial real estate industry analyst, as companies seek the safest yet most cost-effective way to navigate today's office challenges.
Ryan Harding, executive managing director at commercial real estate advisory firm Newmark Knight Frank out of Los Angeles, co-authored a guide titled “7 Tips for Returning to Work” to help employees return to their offices.
Harding's clients operate nationwide, including in Chicago, and work across industry lines — including in entertainment, construction, media and financial services. Harding said the guide began through conversations with clients and hearing about rent-deferral requests and other considerations as the pandemic began to take hold in the spring.
"We started making calls with ownership, lenders, insurance carriers and attorneys to really get our arms around what are the most important things people should be thinking about," Harding said. "The reason we did that was because a lot of our clients were calling us in mid-April when they thought they were going back to the office in May. [They were saying], especially the HR directors we work with, ‘We don’t know how to do this.’ So, we started to gather all the information we heard from those professionals in the various areas that would be impacted, and then we put together this guide.”
As new information about Covid-19 continues to surface, Harding said the guide is being updated, drawing from lessons learned from clients across the country. As for Chicago specifically, Harding said clients are reimagining their office spaces — but not necessarily in the ways people might think. "They are not really going through saying, ‘OK, I need to completely put in $1 million and change my entire 30,000-square-foot workspace right now.’ They’re putting in more hand sanitizers everywhere, and they are instituting various work-from-home policies," Harding said. "A lot of our clients in Chicago and around the country see this as a two-year situation." Harding said he anticipates Chicago also will see a spike in coworking space relative to what it has now. He said office spaces around the country will have to be reimagined because fitting the most amount of people in the least amount of space won't work in a post-pandemic environment.
People are going to see more private offices and more private-spacing conference rooms dedicated to different companies or even just one company, he said. "The reason why coworking is going to be huge in Chicago and around the country is because, at least for a while and maybe forever, you’re going to see companies that want the flexibility," Harding said. While companies are thinking of ways to safely return to offices, Harding has another piece of advice: Make employees feel like they are a part of the process. "One of the reasons we wrote [the guide] was because we sort of thought that people in decision-making roles are also employees of the company; they also have families.“