City’s co-working leasing boom
The ongoing growth in the amount of co-working office space for lease in Auckland is set to continue for several more years to come, according to a new property research report.
The analysis by Bayleys Research concludes there is now more than 48,000sq m of office space dedicated to co-working environments, equating to about 2 per cent of Auckland’s office space.
Bayleys Auckland commercial and industrial director Lloyd Budd said that while growth within the coworking office leasing sector in Auckland had been rapid, international trends were suggesting that further significant growth was likely.
“In many established markets globally, co-worker organisations lease between 5 and 10 percent of the total office stock. At the lower end of this scale, Auckland’s CBD could accommodate at least 70,000sq m of space,” said Budd.
Budd said the arrival in Auckland of global co-working giant WeWork would add further impetus to the sector. In February this year, WeWork committed to an 8500sq m premises at 131 Queen St.
“The Auckland WeWork property is part of a 224 per cent increase on the 14,800sq m of co-working office space which was in the Auckland market in 2016,” he said.
“WeWork is not the only international heavyweights active in the Auckland market. Fellow co-working operator Spaces — part of the IWG group of co-working brands including Regis and Biz Dojo — has also committed to three floors within the Commercial Bay development in downtown Auckland, in addition to space it has at both 155 Fanshawe St and 501
Karangahape Rd. These commitments will allow Spaces to add approximately 1200 desks to the city’s co-working inventory. In addition, the city’s largest co-working operator, Generator — owned by Precinct Properties — is to further expand its footprint by leasing additional space at 10 Madden St in the Wynyard Quarter, which Precinct Properties is developing within its own portfolio.”
Budd said that while co-working leases had traditionally been the real estate domain of technology-based sole-trader and small business operators on flexible short month-tomonth leases, the practice had now evolved into the upper echelons of New Zealand’s corporate sector, with firms such as ANZ Bank, Amazon, Facebook embracing the floorspace.