Developers Foraying Into the Co-working Space

Authored by Ajay Kumar, CEO, TheHouseMonk The number of co-working venues has grown by 240% globally over the past three years, making it the fastest growing sub-sector of the real estate market. And while everyone’s scrambling for their piece of share in this phenomenon, real estate developers are not far behind. About ten years ago, this wouldn’t have seemed likely as rental yields from assets were low while the ‘sale’ market was booming.  However, now that rental growth has rebounded, and the office real estate market has veered around to the idea of co-working spaces. Developers and investors are now fuelling their investments in co-working spaces, in other words, building assets they can monetise. Some of the reputed developers in India who have ventured into this space are:

• Brigade Group, one of India's leading real estate developers, announced the launch of 'BuzzWorks', the company's new brand in the coworking space. The key USP of BuzzWorks will be its hybrid usage for both managed offices and coworking. Every BuzzWorks location will be tech-enabled ensuring that all administrative operations are conducted over the BuzzWorks mobile app.
• WeWork India, a joint venture between New York-headquartered co-working space provider WeWork and Bengaluru-based property developer Embassy Group. Realty firm Embassy Group, the joint venture partner in WeWork India, has pumped in around INR 100 crore ($15.6 million) in the company as the shared space provider aims to expand into multiple locations across Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi amid growing competition in this segment.
• CoWrks, a unit of Bengaluru-based commercial real estate developer RMZ Corp. CoWrks has acquired 700,000 sqft and launched seven centres across Bengaluru, Mumbai, the NCR and Chennai.
• Making its debut into the exciting world of co-working, Gopalan Enterprises launched GopalanCoworks in Bangalore with nearly 1.5 lakh square feet for 2000 seats across multiple locations.
• Another player in this leading competition is GoWorks. Launched by Nimit Mahajan of Nimitaya Group, GoWorks has two campuses located 100 metres apart, spread over 4.5 lakh sqft and 3.5 lakh sqft, respectively. This co-working space, claimed to have built for INR 800 crore, can house about 12,000 people.

We have shown you some of the major developers who have stepped into this space and are here for the long run. With global players also throwing their hat in along with Indian corporates, co-working space will witness intense competition ultimately benefitting the customers with better services and pricing.