“The health and economic crisis that has hit the world and France since March 2020 has deprived companies of the visibility necessary to engage in real estate projects, by profoundly changing their relationship to office spaces” underlines Cushman & Wakefield France in a study on “coworking actors facing the crisis”.
The council states that they « express, in fact, a growing need to make their organizational and working methods more flexible, and are rethinking workplaces to allow their employees to work from a multitude of different places, according to their needs ”. In this context, “the galaxy of these different types of spaces is expanding and the role of the so-called“ classic ”office is evolving. At the same time, “plug and play / work” type workspace solutions are increasingly popular for their speed of installation, their integrated equipment and services, and the agility of their duration of engagement ”.
Indeed, “during the first confinement, many companies installed in coworking spaces had quickly had the possibility, according to their contractual commitments, to end their contract, or even to change it, to avoid any additional costs or better respond to a need for space mobility within their portfolio ”. However, “the business approach also turns to exploring a longer-term real estate strategy. The duration of service provision contracts is increasingly considered over a period of 24 months, with a view to rebalancing interests in the face of the effort of a tariff policy revised downwards, but also with the convenience of rents integrating all costs, without fear of unforeseen increases. By 2021-2022, the number of requests for this type should increase, boosted in particular by the democratization of teleworking within companies, a lever for the growth of coworking and flexible spaces ”…
However, « while user companies continue to sign workstations in flexible and coworking spaces, the players in the flexible market remain, for their part, more wait-and-see in their short and medium-term expansion strategies ”. Thus, “the volume of flexible space transactions in Ile-de-France has fallen by nearly 80%, particularly with regard to office space greater than 1,000 m²”. Actors who had contributed to supporting take-up over the past few years … Cushman & Wakefield adds that in 2020, “the private flexible office activity has proven to be more resilient than the other branches of the flexible space galaxy ( coworking, event spaces, “makerspaces”, etc.), with a higher number of leases. This situation reflects a change in configuration in the “flexible” landscape, where these private “plug and play / work” offices and service software correspond to a real demand from end users to mix flexibility and personalization of a “space for oneself and for oneself” ”.
Finally, “a limited number of closings of coworking spaces or flexible spaces was observed and the health standards put in place by their operators in the face of the pandemic made it possible to maintain their activity”. And Magali Marton, director of studies, concludes: “the actors of flexible spaces will be the spearhead of a paradigm shift towards a hybrid corporate real estate increasingly turned towards the hotel system, focused on the well-being. to be increasingly developed individuals and services. Their rise in the real estate market will undoubtedly induce a repositioning of certain operators in this segment, including the classic ones. Adaptation is the key »…
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