Move over DaVita. There is a new top office space user in town, and it’s a co-working company
Shared-office provider WeWork jumped into Denver’s commercial real estate scene in 2016, opening two locations in less than five weeks in April and May.
The Manhattan-based brand didn’t expand in Denver again in 2016 or in 2017. But on Aug. 1, it opened a new space that signaled its ambitions for the Mile High City market: It took on 139,000 square feet in seven floors of the the Tabor Center building at 16th and Lawrence streets.
Those three offices are just the beginning. WeWork officials have confirmed the company has leases in place for five more central Denver locations. Once all are open by late 2020, WeWork could be the biggest office space user in Denver, surpassing Fortune 500 dialysis company DaVita.
The next WeWork will open in the “cash register building,” a.k.a. Wells Fargo Center, at 1700 Lincoln St. The company is taking on five floors there and should begin welcoming members in December or January, a spokesperson said.
Next, a WeWork will open in the still-under-construction HUB building at 3601 Walnut St. the future corporate home of HomeAdvisor. After that, WeWork will build out spaces in the new Circa Building on Platte Street, the Vault building (former home of the Broker restaurant) at 821 17th St. and a new building coming to 3600 Brighton Blvd. in 2020.
All told, the five additional spaces add up to 353,000 square feet of space, which would bring WeWork’s overall Denver footprint to 606,000 square feet.
Commercial real estate firms and members of the local business press have been tracking WeWork’s growth. BussinessDen in September crowned WeWork the second biggest office user in the city.
A lot can change in two years, but the leases on the books now set up WeWork to eclipse DaVita. The dialysis company has access to 597,000 square feet of space in two towers in the Union Station neighborhood, DaVita officials say.
“Denver is an amazing market for us,” Nathan Lenahan, WeWork’s general manager for the Mountain West and Texas, said via email. “It’s grown tremendously because it’s a great place for innovative companies to attract talent. We’re growing fast because we are responding to the demands of the market.”
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Started in 2010, WeWork now operates 335 locations in 24 countries. It counts more than 320,000 people as members. Its adaptable spaces cater to startups, emerging companies like Denver’s FullContact and Fortune 500 firms, 30 percent of which are members, according to WeWork.
