What life is like at WeWork’s communal housing on Wall Street
IT’S BEEN a year and a half since August Urbish first stepped into the lobby of the WeWork Cos. housing community on Wall Street, and he says the experience has completely changed him.
His fully furnished apartment is located five floors above WeWork’s shared office spaces in a section called WeLive. In the common areas, Urbish and hundreds of other residents can cook dinner in an expansive kitchen, shoot pool in the laundry room or get neighbourly over free WeWork-provided cocktails on the seventh-floor roof terrace.
Since starting his “We” life, Urbish quit his job at a Manhattan art gallery to develop a Twitter-like app for sharing jokes. The 34-year- old has increased the number of friends he would invite to his future wedding, if he ever gets married, to more than 40 from seven. He credits WeLive with helping him to not be “such a spaz.”
Although he doesn’t immediately advertise it, Urbish is such a model citizen that WeWork cuts him a discount on his rent to be an official ambassador for WeLive, a nascent business within one of the world’s most valuable technology startups and the subject of this week’s episode of the Decrypted podcast. “It’s done wonders for my confidence,” Urbish says. “I’ve already kind of forgotten how it was to live not at a WeLive.”
WeWork was founded in 2010 by a pair of American and Israeli entrepreneurs who grew up on communes on opposite sides of the world.
They began by leasing office space and renting desks to New York’s creative set. WeWork has since opened locations in more than 50 cities around the world, amassed investments valuing the company at about US$ 20 billion ( RM86 billion) and last week bought the iconic Lord & Taylor building on Fifth Avenue. WeWork wants to parlay its success with coworking into a “We” lifestyle brand that incorporates not just work but living and wellness for community-minded people.
It’s done wonders for my confidence...I’ve already kind of forgotten how it was to live not at a WeLive.
The first two WeLive buildings, in New York City and near Washington, D.C., debuted early last year to high expectations: WeWork executives had previously told investors that WeLive would soon become a significant part of the business, buoyed by young people’s desire for community well past the college years. WeWork expected to have almost three dozen WeLive locations by the end of this year, according to a 2014 investor presentation published by BuzzFeed. It still only has two.
WeLive stalled for several reasons. For one, it offers little in the way of discounts over a traditional apartment, with studios starting at US$ 3,050 per month in the New York location. Despite the raves of fans like Urbish, other current and former residents say the building isn’t well run for the price and that they were turned off by the communal offerings. Some critics describe it as a dorm for adults.
Jim Woods, the head of WeLive, says finding the right properties has been a challenge but that WeWork is committed to the business. The company
Urbish, WeWork resident
plans to open a 36- storey tower in Seattle by 2020. Twenty-three of its floors will be WeLive.
In the meantime, WeWork is quietly exploring other options besides long-term apartment rentals.
Both WeLive locations provide corporate housing to employees of big companies that use WeWork for office space, Woods says. WeWork also offers units in New York by the night to the public like a hotel.
So I decided to book a room and meet the people inside-like Urbish, who I encountered on my first day there.
I wanted to find out whether everyone at WeLive was as devout as Urbish and whether WeWork might be able to reinvent the home in the same way it aspires to do for the office.
WeLive Wall Street is in a 27story building that was wrecked by Hurricane Sandy. After it was cleared for repairs, WeWork converted the first six floors into offices and used the rest for its housing experiment. — WPBloomberg