Global property adviser Knight Frank and flexible office provider Work.Life announce the launch of new flexible managed workspace solution, Yours.
Yours is positioned as an operating platform for landlords who wish to provide a customer centric and capex efficient managed solution, but don’t have the capability or capacity to take on the operational burden.
A joint venture between Knight Frank and Work.Life, Yours partners with landlords to provide a comprehensive offer, incorporating a sales strategy that addresses both flexible and traditional market demand. The platform streamlines the design and delivery of resalable workspaces, and offers a suite of ongoing services and extras to businesses, including access to Work.Life’s network of coworking spaces and amenities.
Yours attracts a premium return for landlords by reducing marketing voids and attracting a significant uplift over traditional lease income. It is a demand-led, low risk solution for landlords, with no speculative deployment of capital. Landlords can continue to market conventional leases in parallel and only where Yours sources a business for the solution is any capital committed.
For businesses, Yours bridges the gap between coworking and leased workspace, giving them all the benefits of coworking but with their own front door. Yours delivers a best-in-class workspace experience designed around occupiers’ needs, which is transparent and hassle-free.
James Nicholson, Partner at Knight Frank, said: “It is undeniable that the office leasing market has changed exponentially over the last five years, with occupiers demanding more flexibility and tailored solutions to suit their requirements. For landlords not developing their own solutions, we believe that partnering with established and trusted operators is the best and most sustainable model.
“We have partnered with Work.Life to deliver Yours, as we believe our combined capabilities perfectly address the colliding old and new models of real estate, creating a unique proposition for our clients.”
Helen Turner, appointed as a Partner at Knight Frank to help drive the growth of Yours among landlords, said: “Yours is perfect for the increasing number of SMEs outgrowing the coworking model, and for more mature businesses looking for flexible solutions to complement their core, leased real estate. Work.Life is an award winning coworking business and together we offer a credible, cutting edge, customer-centric solution to help our landlord clients minimise void periods and maximise income.”
Elliot Gold, co-founder of Work.Life, said: “We are extremely excited to be launching Yours in partnership with Knight Frank whose industry knowledge, experience and strength of client relationships is unrivalled. This partnership is an exciting opportunity to scale a high quality workspace experience for bigger businesses over the next couple of years – focused on delivering all the benefits of our coworking model with their own front door and brand identity.”
David Kosky, co-founder of Work.Life said: “With more and more landlords struggling to let space traditionally and our existing coworking business focused on smaller SMEs, Yours presents the perfect opportunity to leverage our extensive operating platform to deliver a best-in-class solution for landlords now entering the flexible office market.”
Recent research by Knight Frank has shown that flexible office take up in London has risen from 236,000 sq ft in 2008 to 1.96 million sq ft last year. 2018 was an exceptional year as take up was more than three times the long term average of 650,000 sq ft.