Unfazed by the harsh light cast on the shared-office sector following industry giant WeWork’s botched effort to go public, the Chicago-based duo announced they’ve inked a 15-year agreement with shared-office provider Firmspace for almost 35,000 square feet at 145 S. Wells St.
Austin, Texas-based Firmspace will move this fall into the top three office floors of the 20-story, 210,000-square-foot building that Chicago-based Moceri & Roszak just finished at the corner of Wells and Adams streets, the companies said in a statement.
The developers still face plenty of competition to fill the rest of the building, especially from new West Loop and Fulton Market buildings that have been proposed or are under construction. Working in their favor: They have space ready now, and Chicago just capped off its best year of office demand since 2007. Plus, fast-growing tech companies have shown more interest in updated Central Loop buildings over the past couple of years.
In Firmspace, Moceri & Roszak has landed a new competitor in the highly fragmented local landscape of shared-office providers, which offer low-risk, flexible space that users can rent by the month.
Three-year-old Firmspace, which has opened just three locations to date—in Austin, Houston and Denver—frames itself as a high-end provider with tight security and privacy for its large number of users from the legal field.
Firmspace CEO and former real estate lawyer Anish Michael said Chicago’s corporate diversity made it a logical place to expand the brand, and 145 S. Wells “made a lot of sense for us with convenient access and walkability” to public transportation. “It was a good fit, and we thought it was our opportunity to enter the market.”
Michael said his company aims to differentiate itself in the co-working sector by providing a more upscale design in a single location rather than opening several around the city like the industry’s largest players, such as WeWork, Industrious and Spaces.
Rapid expansion by those bigger firms and other competitors has brought the total amount of co-working space downtown to around 3.2 million square feet, up from 2.2 million just more than a year ago, according to brokerage Newmark Knight Frank.
Firmspace hasn’t established its rents for Chicago users yet, but Michael said starting rents in other markets range from $500 to $750 per month for a one-desk interior office of 60 to 70 square feet.
Moceri & Roszak has been busy in the heart of downtown over the past few years. Riding the wave of demand for rental units in the city, the firm opened a 33-story, 265-unit apartment building at 215 W. Lake St. in 2017 and cashed out in late 2018, selling it for $121 million. Late last year, the developer broke ground on a 25-story, 215-unit apartment building at 50 E. Randolph St., a block from Millennium Park.
