CBRE Announces First Austin Location For Coworking Provider, Spaces

“This is one of the few creative, non-traditional office buildings available in Austin’s downtown submarket. Spaces will be able to offer users both a great, Class A space and easy access to all of the local amenities downtown Austin has to offer.”

Austin, TX – Spaces, the pioneer in creative, flexible workspaces, has signed a 53,000-square-foot lease at 501 Congress Avenue in downtown Austin for the global coworking provider’s first Austin location.

CBRE’s Kelly Woodruff, based in Austin, and Mike Cleary, based in Dallas, represented Spaces. Brent Powdrill with JLL represented the landlord, AFIAA U.S. Investment, Inc.

“501 Congress is the ideal location for a Spaces coworking office,” says Kelly Woodruff, Senior Associate at CBRE. “This is one of the few creative, non-traditional office buildings available in Austin’s downtown submarket. Spaces will be able to offer users both a great, Class A space and easy access to all of the local amenities downtown Austin has to offer.”

“Austin’s entrepreneurial business ecosystem is ideal for flexible workspaces and we are thrilled to find this downtown location to open the first Austin Spaces,” says Michael Berretta, VP of Network Development for IWG, which owns Spaces. “We are confident this unique location combined with Spaces’ long-standing reputation as a premier coworking leader will foster a successful relationship with Austin’s thriving business community.”

“We are very happy to have Spaces as our tenant and look forward to a long-standing partnership,” says Bardo Magel, Head of Asset Management International at AFIAA Foundation for International Real Estate Investments. “Spaces’ tenancy will provide for greater flexibility in the heart of downtown Austin and act as a resource for 501 Congress’ existing tenants.”

The opening of Spaces will add 50,000 square feet of agile real estate to Austin’s CBD, which is experiencing extremely low vacancy rates. According to CBRE Research, at the close of Q3 2018, Class A office vacancy in the CBD was at just 6.2 percent.

According to CBRE’s 2018 Americas Occupier Survey, more than 70 percent of companies surveyed anticipate using coworking as a strategic solution for flexibility in the next three years. In response to the growing demand for flexible office space solutions among occupiers and investors, CBRE recently launched the Agile Real Estate Knowledge Hub to help companies better understand the different aspects of agile real estate, including co-working, incubators, serviced offices, enterprise solutions turnkey and short-term leases.

“Business is changing faster than ever before, and companies are trying to maximize agility to stay ahead. Flexible office space started as a solution for tech start-ups and is now going mainstream as larger companies are experimenting with ‘enterprise’ solutions,” said Beth Moore, CBRE’s Agile Real Estate Practice lead.

CBRE Group, Inc. is headquartered in Los Angeles, is the world’s largest commercial real estate services and investment firm (based on 2017 revenue). The company has more than 80,000 employees (excluding affiliates), and serves real estate investors and occupiers through approximately 450 offices (excluding affiliates) worldwide.

CBRE offers a broad range of integrated services, including facilities, transaction and project management; property management; investment management; appraisal and valuation; property leasing; strategic consulting; property sales; mortgage services and development services. Please visit our website at www.cbre.com.

AFIAA is a center of specialization for international real estate investments offering products to Swiss pension funds.  Established in 2004, AFIAA Foundation has its head office in Zurich, as well as further offices in New York and Sydney.  AFIAA has net assets of CHF 2.2 billion under management via its investment groups (as of 30.06.2018).  For the AFIAA Global product, it acquires predominantly office and retail property with an investment volume of CHF 50 to 150 million.  Investment activity is focused on Core and Core+ category properties in central locations of major cities in Europe, North America and Australia.  Its foundation assets are managed by AFIAA Real Estate Investment AG, a subsidiary of Avadis Vorsorge AG.  For further information: http://www.afiaa.com/.