Page 16 - RENJ Sept.21

14 SEPTEMBER 2021
to work at least part of the time at home or at co-working spaces closer to home, rather than make the long trip to the urban core — the so- called hub-and-spoke approach.
Mark Dixon, founder and CEO of IWG, said in a recent company blog post that employers are moving “to a hybrid way of working: at home, a local office and occasionally a corporate HQ.”
Donohue agreed, predicting that the message from bosses to workers
will be: “We understand you may not want to come to New York City every day, but you’d like to be in a professional environment that’s 10 or 15 minutes from home, whether full-time or a couple of days a week.”
Co-working operators appear to
be gearing up to accommodate more than the typical entrepreneur or small group user. Mission
50, located at 50 Harrison St. in Hoboken, offers everything from open seating and small private
offices to enterprise spaces able to accommodate teams of up to 100 or more.
Landlord JDA Group is also
focused on creating a communal environment, even for those who are in fact sole practitioners, to help counter the isolation of working from home. To help promote social interaction, Mission 50 members will have access to programming such as networking events, guest speakers, pitch competitions, scotch tastings, guest bartenders
and gaming tournaments.
“Many people are tiring of the work-from-home environment and its lack of social interaction but are trying to reconcile that with some trepidation about going back into the office,” Dell’Aquila said earlier this year. “Everything we have done at Mission 50 is designed to inspire people and get them excited about coming to work again without feeling like they will be trapped inside an office all day.” RE
At Desk, a new co-working space in New Brunswick, most of the 11,000 square feet is devoted to private offices, as some users seek the safety of an enclosed area.
JDA Group LLC recently expanded and overhauled its Mission 50 co-working space in Hoboken, resulting in 80,000 square feet of flexible offerings ranging from open seating and small private offices to enterprise spaces for teams of more than 100.
SECOND CHANCE SPACE
Many flexible workspaces in New Jersey are examples of adaptive reuse — repurposing other
types of space for offices — or part of a larger effort to reposition an outdated property.
Bell Works’ Colab, for example,
is part of the redevelopment
of the 2 million-square-foot
Bell Labs research campus in Holmdel. The developer, Somerset Development, has remade the landmark midcentury building, designed by the famed modern architect Eero Saarinen, into a
sort of mixed-use downtown for Holmdel, which lacks a traditional shopping district. And the company recently announced that it will open another flex space at Bell Works,
a 72,000-square-foot area called Campus.
At Colab, offerings start with a $25 daily pass, which offers access to
an open space, with amenities like coffee and printing, for workers who bring in their own laptops. At the top end, a suite with two private offices and a common area runs $3,500 to $4,000 a month.
At Desk, the New Brunswick
space is inside the former Rutgers bookstore, and the planned Montclair space will be in a historic bank building.
Industrious has a 31,000-square-foot co-working space at the Short Hills Mall — a spot that was once part
of a now-closed Saks department store. The company reports that workers are returning, and that they like the convenience of being steps away from stores and restaurants in the mall. According to a company spokesman, workers are using the location “as a third-party space
in addition to commuting to their offices in New York City and working from home.”
At Kearny Point, a long-vacant 130- acre former shipbuilding complex,
the design of its spaces pay tribute to its industrial past, with concrete floors and exposed ducts.
At Mission 50, the co-working space has grown within a traditional, 78,000-square-foot office building. Owner JDA Group started out with just a small co-working space of about 5,000 square feet. It tested the concept over a decade, a period
that included Hurricane Sandy, and decided there was enough demand to expand the co-working and flex space to about 20,000 square feet.
“It was 10 years of watching it through the business cycles,” JDA Group CEO Greg Dell’Aquila said. “It has been proven that in this location, this building, people want this product.”
Hugo Neu Corp. recently completed The Annex, a restored industrial building at its Kearny Point complex that contains 90,000 square feet of private office suites for small and medium- sized businesses.
Courtesy: Desk
Photo by QuallsBenson/Courtesy: JDA Group