The Crown Estate is to enter the burgeoning flexible co-working space market in London later this year.
Plans are being brought forward for the creation of around 300 workstations and a café in 25,000 sq ft across half a dozen floors in Crown Estate-owned office blocks just off Regent Street in London’s West End.
If successful, the plans could be the start of a step change in the type of offer provided by the Crown Estate, which owns 9.6m sq ft of floorspace in the West End.
The Crown has chosen to provide the co-working offering itself instead of bringing in an external operator so that it has full control over the offering and can make changes and maintain close relationships with its customers.
This initial co-working offering could eventually be expanded to encompass meeting rooms, lounges and other amenities for the use of its office occupiers.
It expects to broaden its mix of occupiers with the offering, but is also targeting its existing customers by providing flexible space for any special projects current occupiers may have or supplying extra space for rapidly growing businesses.
The Crown is also looking at possibly expanding the range of uses at its buildings with James Cooksey, director of central London at the Crown Estate, citing Brixton’s Squire & Partners-designed department store, which has a rooftop guest restaurant and bar, as a good example of how to maximise the potential of a property.
Meanwhile, the Crown Estate is also bringing forward a pipeline of 1.2m sq ft of development across 25 projects, including Airwork House on Piccadilly which won planning approval last month.
Cooksey said: “We recognise that if we don’t move forwards, we won’t be providing what our customers are looking for.”
However, the Crown Estate is not likely to completely depart from its traditional lease offerings, and will still cater for businesses requiring larger amounts of space on longer leases, Cooksey added.
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