Serendipity Labs building out coworking space in CNL Tower

Serendipity Labs’ search for its first Orlando coworking location has led it to downtown’s CNL Center Building, where it will lease the third floor with new builds for private and open workspaces, team rooms, and meeting and event areas.

Originally seeking 15,000 square feet, developer 3H Group – which is based in Tennessee and has two hotels in Metro Orlando – chose the 27,000-square-foot space at 450 S. Orange Ave. Opening is scheduled for March or April, a Serendipity spokeswoman told GrowthSpotter on Thursday.

Altamonte Springs-based Jim Macon Building Contractor, Inc., will perform $1.7 million worth of construction work for Class A space through property manager JLL.

“It’s more user-friendly and more modern looking than your typical office,” said Jim Macon Jr., vice president of the construction company that’s a preferred vendor with JLL. Connectivity throughout as well as furnishings, break-room design and inside suites, are designed with coworking in mind, he said. Houston-based Gensler is the architect.

Serendipity upped its square footage in order to provide more common areas and enable flexibility for business tenants, its spokeswoman said.

Office space in Metro Orlando saw low vacancy rates during the third quarter, measured at 9.5 percent in by CBRE, with downtown’s figure slightly tighter at 9.3 percent. Asking lease rates for the region are increasing, the report found, driven by infrastructure construction, solid employment rates, theme parks’ expansions and other factors.

Macon said Lake Mary is a particularly active area for interior office construction right now, having recently built out 57,000 square feet there for customer-service provider Alorica, with a national contract between the two companies.

Serendipity’s first Florida location opened in Aventura. It lists on its website 28 locations nationwide including Orlando’s that’s in the works, and Macon said more are planned.

“We target the established professional, someone who might be in a satellite office or who is independent and can choose when and where they want to work,” Paula Gomprecht, vice president of marketing for Serendipity Labs, told GrowthSpotter in November, adding that differing coworking brands can complement one another by targeting different demographics.

Source, Bill Zimmerman, GrowthSpotter.

Flexibility Attracting Business of all Shapes & Sizes to Coworking

Coworking spaces bring a spectrum of workers from different businesses together to a communal office where they can choose a set up that fits their needs, like a private office or an open workspace. Coworking generally offers a shorter time commitment and more flexibility that a traditional office lease. Shared amenities like WiFi or copying are included in a tenant’s monthly rate, lowering the barrier to getting a business up and running.

Kelly Cox, general manager of Serendipity Labs Columbus Downtown, says the growth of the industry speaks to the modern age of convenience. In today’s on-demand society, people want what they want on the spot, and can find that flexibility in their workspace through coworking.

Coworking offices like Serendipity Labs offer a variety of options to their tenants. There’s the obvious, like a desk or a private office, but also options like a business mailing address, a local phone number, access to meeting and conference rooms, or event space.

Source, Susan Post, Columbus Underground.

Upscale Coworking Space First to Open at $80M Biltmore Development

Serendipity Labs Inc. is taking 31,000 square feet of the entire second floor as its first move into the Phoenix area.

With 15 co-working spaces open across the country, and 29 total committed, Serendipity Labs plans to open up to eight more spaces during the next three to four years in the Phoenix area, said John Arenas, chairman and CEO.

“Phoenix is part of our national network westward expansion,” said Arenas, adding members can work at any location. “We’re making sure we’re establishing a presence in the major U.S. markets. From a company’s point of view, being able to have a provider that can support the company in multiple markets is important.”

Source, Hayley Ringle, Upscale Coworking Space First to Open at $80M Biltmore Development Phoenix Business Journal.

Developing Mount Pleasant office building nearly half leased

A five-story office building under development in Mount Pleasant is nearly half leased.

Portside, a 120,000-square-foot project of Atlanta-based Holder Properties, will house Serendipity Labs Coworking of New York in 30,200 square feet and Merrill Lynch Wealth Management in about 25,000 square feet, according to a source familiar with the project.

The waterfront building near Patriots Point will share a parking deck with a proposed 165-room Embassy Suites Hotel under construction nearby in Ferry Wharf. The office building is expected to open next spring.

“Holder Properties is excited to be a part of this unique community and deliver one of the few waterfront office buildings in the Charleston area,” said John Holder, CEO of Holder Properties.

Among Holder’s other Charleston-area projects are Blackbaud Inc.’s new corporate campus on Daniel Island and the River Oaks Center Office Building in North Charleston.

Serendipity Labs also will open a 33,000-square-foot space in Garco Mill at 4854 O’Hear St. in North Charleston.

Source, Warren Wise, Developing Mount Pleasant office building nearly half leased Post and Courier

Tour Serendipity Labs’ new space in the Short North

Serendipity Labs has opened its second co-working location in the Columbus area, this one in the Short North.

The space, which takes up 22,000 square feet in a floor and a half at the newly-built 886 N. High St., opened Aug. 1.

Trevor Warner, CEO at Warner Consulting Group and managing partner at Serendipity Labs, said the location has a distinctly different vibe from the downtown location on Capitol Square.

“We tried to keep it a little more industrial to keep up with the eclectic vibe of the Short North,” Warner told me. “This location has more space for events, an outdoor space and gathering areas. In 2018, it’s more of that outdoor space – so having the fourth-floor views there is a really exciting thing.”

The facility is a franchise with Renascent Hospitality. Memberships start at $49 a month.

The Short North Alliance is the first tenant, taking up a big part of the fourth-floor office, he said.

Co-working spaces such as this are enjoying a surge in Columbus. Real estate firm CBRE estimates that by the end of the year, as many as 50 co-working locations will be open in Central Ohio, using as much as about 564,000 square feet of space.

Source, Tristan Navera, Tour Serendipity Labs’ new space in the Short North Columbus Business First

Serendipity Labs Coming to Indianapolis

The coworking company leased 24,000 square feet in a building that is being redeveloped in Carmel, Ind., with two more locations planned for the near future.

Serendipity Labs is ready to open its first shared office spaces in the Indianapolis area, about the same time it debuted in Pittsburgh. The company has leased 24,000 square feet on the second floor of a building which is being restored in midtown Carmel, Ind., with completion date set for the fourth quarter of 2018. Once this first location opens, Serendipity plans to add two more coworking spaces across the metro.

“Indianapolis is a vital Midwest hub, home to large multinational companies and those that are local. With distributed teams and ever-changing workforce requirements, businesses need flexible workplaces that are professional without being stodgy,” said Chairman & CEO John Arenas, in a prepared statement.

Source, Roxana Baiceanu, Commercial Property Executive.

Coworking Grows In The Midwest

Coworking providers may have first established operations in the nation’s core cities, but secondary markets are now getting their share. Serendipity Labs Coworking, for example, will soon open its first Indianapolis area shared office and coworking location. Company officials say it will open during the fourth quarter in the Midtown Carmel redevelopment project, a joint venture in suburban Carmel between Old Town Development and Ambrose Property Group. Read More

Source, Brian J. Rogal, Globest.

More co-working facilities are set to open Downtown, in the Strip District

Two more co-working spaces are set to open in Pittsburgh — one in a 100-year-old renovated building in the central business district; the other in a mixed-used development complex in the Strip District.

Beauty Shoppe, which is Pittsburgh-based and operates several other shared work spaces in the city, said tenants this week will begin to move into the second floor of the restored Pitt Building on Smithfield Street, Downtown.

Serendipity Labs, a national co-working company, said it will open its first Pittsburgh location in December at 2545 Railroad St., part of the 3 Crossings complex in the Strip.

Co-working facilities provide shared space for individuals and firms employed by different organizations. Some may be independent contractors. Tenants share amenities such as printing, copying, mail service, and on-site cafes. Some spaces offer business programming or networking events.

o-working growth has been boosted by the rise of the gig economy in which many workers are freelancers and don’t require space in traditional offices.

A study by JLL, a Chicago-based real estate firm, projected flexible and shared amenity space will account for about 30 percent of the office market by 2030.

Source, Joyce Gannon, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Suite Talk: John Arenas at Serendipity Labs

Although he didn’t invent the coworking concept, Serendipity Labs Founder and CEO John Arenas has become something of the de facto face of the phenomenon via interviews with the likes of The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, CNBC and of course the Business Journal.

Since starting Serendipity Labs in his hometown of Rye, New York, in 2011, Arenas has seen his business grow to encompass an ever-increasing number of locations — 13 to date, with several due to open later this year, including a second operation in both Denver and the Dallas-Fort Worth area scheduled to open in September and a second Los Angeles locale set to roll out in November.

And nearly a year ago the company announced a joint venture with Chinese coworking titan Ucommune, which includes a 34,000-square-foot office in the Manhattan Financial District. The two companies also are connecting their networks to allow their members to use any of their locations throughout the U.S. and China.

But is it all (co)work and no play for this entrepreneur, whose regional reach also includes a recently expanded office in Stamford? Business Journal reporter Kevin Zimmerman recently spoke with Arenas to find out.

It seems like whenever we talk there’s another new Serendipity Labs opening somewhere. Are you surprised at all by your growth, or by that of the coworking sector at large?

“When you’ve been evangelizing for something for so long, you’re surprised when it finally happens. You can always be right if you say something for long enough!”

In addition to what’s already open and what’s been announced, what else is in the works for Serendipity Labs?

“Right now we have five in design, five or six under construction, and we’ve signed letters of intent for leases in another five or six locations. One of those is for White Plains, but it’s still too early to talk about the details there. But that will be great for us and for White Plains.”

How so?

“As with any of our locations, it helps with the whole live-work-play environment that everyone’s talking about. And we want to have a presence in the suburbs as well as urban centers like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and so on. We also plan to add another in Connecticut at a location that’s still to be determined.”

I think a lot of people wonder how someone gets into the coworking business, but for you it was sort of a natural progression, wasn’t it?

“My dad was an urban planner, so I’ve had ideas about how transportation and employment can affect each other for as long as I can remember. After college I became a civil engineer and then started getting interested in creating a network of places for people to work — people I called by the futuristic-sounding term ‘urbanauts.’

“My first real brand was Stratis Business Centers, which grew to be an 11-state network of suburban office centers around the country that offered people an opportunity to improve the quality of their working life. After the acquisition by Regus (the international workspace provider now known as IWG), I stayed on for a few years before going off and creating (online reservation system for sourcing office space, meeting space and other workspace) Worktopia, which as the name indicates was meant to provide a utopian way of working — the next generation of how to work that wasn’t constrained by time, place and a physical location.

“(When Worktopia was acquired by SignUp4 in 2011 — itself acquired by CVent for $22.4 million in 2015) I still felt the concept was right, it was just that the market wasn’t quite ready yet. Now with Serendipity Labs, it feels like we’re at the right place at the right time — finally!”

What’s your biggest challenge today?

“Knowing that the world is cyclical and that economies can be cyclical. Unexpected things can happen. Having been through three or four economic cycles in this area has taught me a lot. Today we try to plan and cover ourselves for those possibilities — we built this business to withstand those changes. As a result, we’re not going to go out at a blistering pace of expansion.”

Has there been a particular mentor during your career?

“I worked for a real estate developer, and the CEO there was an amazingly experienced guy. He’s really the one who taught me that there are two categories of everything: What to do and what not to do. He’s now deceased, but he helped me to figure out what to focus on and what to avoid — it’s still something I use today, and I encourage my employees to take the same approach.”

Was there a major influencer on your personal life as you were growing up?

“No. I grew up as a latchkey kid like a lot of kids did in the ’70s and ’80s. When you’re in that kind of situation you look to each other to kind of find your way. It was like ‘Stand By Me’ or ‘The Wonder Years.’ The kids knew their parents were around somewhere — we just didn’t know where they were.

“That kind of experience guides you in terms of your self-reliance and your agility in relationships, and it really helps make you who you are.”

Have there been any business books you’ve found to be particularly valuable?

“I’ve stopped reading those (laughs). I’m in the business of doing business with people, and those sorts of relationships don’t really change — even with millennials it’s not that different. I’m more likely to go to the Old Testament or the Gospels for advice. With business books, anything I’ve ever read, it seems like it’s all been captured. It’s not that I know everything, but that everything is known.”

What do you do in your spare time — assuming there is such a thing for you?

“It’s important to have spare time. If you’re not taking time off, you’re missing out on something essential, both in terms of your own needs and the needs of others. It’s easy to tell yourself that your vocation is your avocation — especially when things are going well — but it’s important to have those other outlets.

I do a lot of volunteering — it’s really rewarding to help others, who in turn can end up helping others themselves. I volunteered at the Jay Heritage Center (in Rye) and have helped with the restoration of the Peter Augustus Jay House there. I’ve helped the Rye Arts Center work on their strategy to point it in the right direction for growth.

Most recently I’ve gotten involved with the building of a new church in Purchase (New York), which will be the first in over 300 years. (Trinity Presbyterian Church, which owns three plots of land there, wants to build a 26,000-square-foot facility with 130 parking spaces to accommodate its growing congregation; some residents have objected to the plan.) They’re going through an appeals process now, which is something I know how to do.

I also love to be on the water power-boating. I’m at that stage of my life — my youngest girl is in high school and I have no grandkids to play with yet.”

Who do you turn to for advice these days?

“My wife of 24 years, Kim. We really enjoy each other’s company. She’s seen me go through different cycles of my career, building companies up from nothing — and to her it’s not every impressive, which is nice. She’s my toughest but best critic.”

Source, Kevin Zimmerman, Stamford co-working space redefines working from home Westfair.

Stamford coworking space redefines working from home

Many Americans are changing how and where they work, from home offices to shared “coworking” office spaces.

According to a Gallup poll, over 40 percent of Americans work from home or remotely at least part of the time. And many of those say that joining a coworking space has improved their productivity.

Serendipity Labs in Stamford is part of a national network of shared work environments where members can pay for daily access to a communal workspace or book time in private offices or meeting rooms.

Ingrid Sarver is a small business owner and a mom of two who utilizes the space. She says that being close to home but escaping the distractions of home makes a huge difference.

“I used to work from home, or go to cafes,” she says. “And that works for a little while, but coming here every day and being able to have a wonderful professional workspace, or having meeting rooms when I need, conference rooms, has been really great for my business.”

Sarver says that having two kids under the age of 2 made working from home especially difficult.

“It’s been measurable for my business,” she says. “All the different things that I can now focus on, and having a space to come and work every day is terrific.”

Serendipity Labs says 50 percent of their members are employees of large corporations who have their monthly fees covered by their employer.

Serendipity Labs is offering those interested in coworking this summer a free three-day pass.

Source, News 12, Stamford co-working space redefines working from home News 12

Serendipity Labs co-working plants another flag in LA

The firm will be occupying the entire 18th floor of CityNational2Cal building

Add Serendipity Labs to the growing list of co-working companies in Downtown Los Angeles.

The New York-based firm signed a deal to occupy 23,000 square feet at CIM Group’s CityNational2Cal building in Bunker Hill, the company said Wednesday. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

It is slated to take over the entire 18th floor, and also offer an innovation center and outdoor event space on the plaza level of the 52-story building at 350 S. Grand Avenue.

Serendipity Labs’ offerings range from $850 per month for a dedicated desk to $9,000 for an eight-person suite, according to the company. Members also have some short-term options, such as 10-day packages or day rates.

The Downtown location is the second L.A. outpost for the co-working firm, which plans to open 10 locations in the city. It announced a new 37,000-square-foot lease at the Jerry Snyder-built Hollywood 959 building late March.

The firm already has locations in Chicago, Miami, Atlanta, and Denver among others.

Serendipity Labs, led by John Arenas, will be joining other co-working firms like WeWork, Cross Campus, Spaces, Industrious and Convene in DTLA. The companies occupy a combined 500,000 square feet of space in the neighborhood, the highest concentration across Greater L.A.

Source, Natalie Hoberman, Serendipity Labs co-working plants another flag in LA The Real Deal Los Angeles

Serendipity Labs announced today that it has signed a lease for a 25,000 square foot location in Denver’s Lower Downton district at Union Tower West, 1801 Wewatta Street.

Serendipity Labs already has one location in Greenwood Village set to open in June. The national, upscale space will take the 11th floor of 1801 Wewatta Street and open in September.

The building, developed by Portman Holdings, is home to the Hotel Indigo and Hearth & Dram restaurant. The project broke ground in 2015.

“We are rolling out regional networks of urban and suburban locations throughout the US to serve as an extension of the corporate workplace that also provide members great choices about where to work,” said John Arenas, CEO and chairman of Serendipity Labs. “Being steps from Union Station, with light rail service to the suburbs and the airport, makes this site a great hub for our growing regional and national network.”

Director of leasing for Portman, Travis Garland, said the firm will be a great addition to the “pioneering spirit of the neighborhood.”

Membership levels at Serendipity Labs include coworking, dedicated desks and offices, and team rooms.

There are also private focus rooms for phone calls and privacy, wellness rooms, a work lounge, Lab Café, and studios with full A/V.

Source, Kelcey McClung, LoDo’s Union Tower West fills last vacancy Denver Business Journal.

Hospitality has expanded far beyond hotels to influence all sectors of North Texas real estate.

“Hospitality is so much more than providing a physical product,” says Paula Gomprecht, vice president of marketing for hospitality-focused co-working concept Serendipity Labs, which just opened its first North Texas location at the Uptown Arts building in Dallas. “People want to identify with something that will take care of them.”

Whereas creating an experience is focused on producing an enjoyable and memorable time, hospitality is the business of making people feel welcome to stay and return. Hospitality is more complex than offering services hotel guests love such as room service, maid service, and a concierge—though those are important. Making someone feel welcome is a combination of services and details, such as comfortable furniture, well-lit corridors, easy wayfinding, unexpected snacks or drinks, and a predictable arrival experience that mitigates inconvenience.

This recent upsurge in hospitality-focused real estate has gone far beyond hotels and has made its way into restaurants, retail stores, hospitals, schools, airports, and offices, says Lindsay Wilson, executive managing principal and interiors section leader at Corgan. Many types of spaces now have friendly, inviting reception areas that contrast the tall, fortress-style desks of the past. Waiters, receptionists, and check-out personnel have ramped up efforts to be more accommodating to guests and customers.

Source, Julia Bunch, What the Real Estate Industry Can Learn From the Hospitality Sector D Magazine.

Serendipity Labs is expanding its presence across North Texas with its latest venture — a new coworking space at HALL Park in Frisco that will launch in September.

Dallas-based HALL Group, which focuses on developing innovative spaces across Dallas such as HALL Park and Uptown Arts, will be a joint venture partner on the new Frisco location.

“Businesses today are seeking flexible office space options, marketing to the modern employee and future of the workplace.”
Craig Hall

With over 125 coworking spaces being developed across the country, Serendipity Labs offers upscale, flexible office spaces to working businesses and individuals. Serendipity Labs Frisco-HALL Park, at 3201 Dallas Parkway, will include offices, conference rooms, team rooms, and event space. Varying membership packages will determine the level of access to the amenities. To view pricing and membership packages, visit Serendipity Lab’s website.

“Businesses today are seeking flexible office space options, marketing to the modern employee and future of the workplace,” HALL Group founder and chairman Craig Hall said in a news release.

The Frisco location is Serendipity Labs’ second venture in DFW. In 2017, HALL Group invested in Serendipity Labs, and launched Serendipity Labs Dallas-Uptown Arts at KPMG Plaza in the Dallas Arts District

“HALL Group is a preeminent developer, known to be at the vanguard of commercial real estate trends, and we welcome them as a partner at our location in the newest HALL Park building,” Serendipity Labs CEO John Arenas said ina release.

Source, Katie Kelton , Serendipity Labs Coworking Space to Open at HALL Park in Frisco Dallas Innovates.

Upscale co-working concept Serendipity Labs has leased about 25,000 square feet in Frisco’s tallest office building.

HALL Group recently completed its latest development, a 300,000-square-foot office building in Frisco’s HALL Park. The building, HALL Park’s 17th, will welcome three tenants in the coming months.

Serendipity Labs, the upscale co-working concept which established its North Texas presence in HALL’s KPMG Plaza late last year, will open its second area location later this year. Craig Hall, founder and chairman of HALL Group, is an investor in the hospitality-focused co-working concept. HALL Group will be a joint venture partner in the new Frisco location. The co-working concept will move into 25,000 square feet, including a small footprint on the ground floor of 3201 Dallas Pkwy. Serendipity Labs has ramped up its North Texas expansion and recently hired a director of sales, Karen Pierre. Worth Coworking, which manages the Dallas location, will also manage the new office.

Source, Julia Bunch, HALL Park’s Latest Building Inks Third Tenant, Has More in the Works D Magazine.

10+ Productivity Inducing Coworking Spaces in Columbus

Serendipity Labs
Operating an upscale coworking space at 21 East State St., Serendipity Labs is getting ready to open its second location in the city, in the Short North neighborhood. With a variety of setups, the collaborative office hub welcomes freelancers working alone or in teams, and includes flexible workspaces, all-inclusive private offices, a coworking lounge, and meeting and event spaces. If you want to find your own workplace, you can opt for one of the resident or non-resident membership packages available. The company offers full-time and part-time access to coworking desks, dedicated desks, private offices for up to three people, and team rooms for up to 10 people. In addition to the standard amenities, you can choose to pay for telephony, technology, and business presence bundles or after-hours answering services.

Source, Teodora DeMian, 10+ Productivity Inducing Coworking Spaces in Columbus CommercialCafé,

Franchising May Be a Way for Co-Working Operators to Expand Quickly

Learning how the franchising model worksmay be the primary reason why Ucommune, China’s largest co-working operator, partnered with Serendipity Labs to enter the U.S. market.

One opportunity for co-working operators to scale up and grow quickly is through franchising, says Dallas-based Ryan Hoopes, a senior associate at real estate services firm Colliers International and co-founder of the firm’s flexible workspace advisory services practice. While only two major co-working operators so far, New York-based Serendipity Labs and Naples, Fla.-based Venture X, have leveraged this strategy, he expects more co-working operators to adopt the franchising model.

Learning how this corporate model works, in fact, may be the primary reason why Ucommune, China’s largest co-working operator, partnered with Serendipity Labs to enter the U.S. market, Hoopes notes. “If Ucommune can figure out how this works and apply it to other foreign market locations, that would be very smart,” he says, noting that the Chinese co-working operator already has 160 locations in 35 cities across China and the world.

Ucommune, the second largest co-working operator in the world with over 50,000 desks, recently opened a 34,000-sq.-ft. co-branded, co-working location at 28 Liberty Street in Manhattan in partnership with Serendipity Labs and New York RockTree Capital, an international merchant banking firm that is also a co-founding shareholder of Ucommune.

The deal provides Ucommune instant access to U.S. companies and helps its international growth, Hoopes says, while providing Serendipity Labs access to foreign investors as it expands.

Source, Patricia Kirk, Franchising May Be a Way for Co-Working Operators to Expand Quickly National Real Estate Investor.

Serendipity Labs opens in L&C Tower

Coworking company Serendipity Labs opened earlier this week in downtown’s L&C Tower, representing the company’s first Nashville-area location.

Owned by SLN1 Partners LLC and operated by Memphis-based Maximum Hospitality, Serendipity Labs is operating from a 15,000-square-foot space in the iconic tower, with an address of 159 Fourth Ave. N. It occupies a portion of the first floor, and through an interior stairway, connects to the entire second floor of the building’s nine-story annex, offering a work lounge, team rooms, private offices, a Lab Café and event space.

“We are pleased to bring Serendipity Labs to downtown Nashville,” Dan McEwan, CEO of Maximum Hospitality, said in a release. “As the city continues its unprecedented growth, Serendipity Labs uniquely allows established professionals and companies to extend their real estate footprint in a secure, proven environment, and offers professional and fast-growing companies a safe, welcoming, hospitality-driven workplace so they may focus on innovation and growth.”

Maximum Hospitality has developed and managed five hotel properties in the Nashville market.

Source, Nashville Post Staff, Serendipity Labs opens in L&C Tower Nashville Post.

Serendipity Labs opens its first New York co-working space with Beijing’s UCommune as a minority partner

UCommune, China’s largest co-working-space operator, extended its footprint to New York by investing in the first Manhattan location for Serendipity Labs, a Rye, New York, based operator that is also in expansion mode.

UCommune is a minority partner in the 34,000 square-foot space at 28 Liberty Street, which opened in a soft launch on March 12, and will have its grand opening in April. The Beijing-based company was founded in 2015, is in 130 countries with more than 7 million square-feet of space, and describes itself as the second-largest co-working business in the world, after WeWork.

The partnership with Serendipity Labs extends beyond the downtown location. Both companies are integrating their memberships on their mobile app, which will allow UCommune members in China and Serendipity Labs members in the U.S. to book desks at the other company’s locations.

Serendipity [Labs] has set itself apart in the industry by offering co-working operations that meet levels of compliance in privacy, security and technology that are required by large corporations, including those in financial services and healthcare. The company jumped at the chance to bring in UCommune as a partner.

“We wanted to have access to China’s largest co-working company,” said John Arenas, Serendipity [Labs]’s CEO and a former general manager of Regus Americas. “It has 10 times as many locations as WeWork in China, and will likely prevail there, as always happens with the state-backed brand.”

Source, Matthew Flamm, Chinese co-working giant gets a toehold in New York market Crain’s New York Business.

Serendipity Labs Coworking has signed a lease at the Hollywood 959

No, it’s not WeWork.

Serendipity Labs Coworking, which like its bigger rival is also based in New York, has signed a lease at the Hollywood 959.

It marks the first Los Angeles location for Serendipity Labs, which is taking 36,000 square feet inside the creative office building, at 6555 Barton Avenue, the Commercial Observer reported.

The firm will be taking over Broad Green Pictures’ headquarters in the building, following news that the film company would shutter its production division.

Designed by Gensler, the Jerry Snyder-built property in the Hollywood Media District includes two buildings. The 138,000-square-foot West location is where Serendipity Labs will be. Adjacent to it is the 120,500-square-foot East, at 959 Seward Street. Sound company Formosa Group, which has worked on “Game of Thrones,” leases two floors at that location.

Serendipity Labs’ offerings range from $850 per month for a dedicated desk to $9,000 for an eight-person suite, according to the company.. Members also have some short-term options, such as 10-day packages or day rates.

The firm already has locations in Atlanta, Miami, Chicago, Denver, among others. Its latest Hollywood outpost is its 11th location nationwide.

Source, Natalie Hoberman, Another NY-based co-working company is going Hollywood The Real Deal.

Serendipity Labs Eyes Hollywood for Newest Co-Working Space

Another co-working space is putting down roots in Hollywood, CA.

Serendipity Labs Coworking, the Rye, NY-based shared workspace company, has assumed the lease for Broad Green Pictures’ 36,000-square-foot headquarters at the Hollywood 959 building located at 6555 Barton Ave. in the Hollywood Media District.

The five-story, 138,000-square-foot West Bldg. and adjacent four-story, 120,526-square-foot East Bldg. at 959 Seward St. were built in 2015.

The newest location marks the first in Los Angeles for the seven-year-old company, according to Paula Gomprecht, vice president of marketing for Serendipity Labs.

“It’s a beautiful building and a fantastic location,” Gomprecht said. “Being in the media district allows us to provide our particular brand of service to media, to Hollywood and the industry.”

There was also a need and a demand for something different when it comes to co-working spaces here, according to Gomprecht.

“We are not just another pretty space,” said John Arenas, CEO of Serendipity Labs, in a statement. “The Serendipity Labs’ philosophy is grounded in hospitality. For our first Los Angeles location, we are thrilled to be premiering at this spectacular site and look forward to welcoming the Hollywood community to our growing network of workplaces across the country.”

Members can work at any Serendipity Labs location across the country, including a new one in Nashville and other locations in New York City. The Hollywood location marks the firm’s 11th location nationwide with 125 more currently under development, according to Gomprecht.

The Hollywood space was designed by Gensler and includes editing rooms, a commercial kitchen, a dining area and a soundproofed screening room in addition to offices with privacy film and walls.

“Privacy and security is really important to us,” Gomprecht said.

Serendipity Labs, which is just entering the West Coast, also places an emphasis on hospitality since many of its staff members come from that industry and, as a result, “know how to provide first-class service,” according to Gomprecht.

Source, Karen Jordan, Serendipity Labs Eyes Hollywood for Newest Co-Working Space Costar.

NY-Based Flexible Workspace Provider Serendipity Labs Expands to Hollywood

Serendipity Labs, a flexible workspace operator based in Rye, N.Y., is planting a flag in Los Angeles, Commercial Observer can first report.

For its first L.A. location, the company last night signed a deal to sublease 36,000 square feet from the defunct indie film company Broad Green Pictures at 959 Seward Street in Hollywood’s Media District for the remaining eight years of the lease. (Broad Green Pictures shut down its production division last August, as the Los Angeles Times reported.) Serendipity Labs opened today in the as-is Gensler-designed space, which includes a soundproofed, 25-seat screening room, editing rooms, a commercial kitchen and an event space. A company spokeswoman declined to provide the asking rent.

“For our first Los Angeles location, we are thrilled to be premiering at this spectacular site, and look forward to welcoming the Hollywood community to our growing network of workplaces across the country,” Serendipity Labs Chairman and CEO John Arenas said in a prepared statement.

Source, Lauren Elkies Schram, NY-Based Flexible Workspace Provider Serendipity Labs Expands to Hollywood Commercial Observer.

Cracking the co-working code in commercial real estate

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Real estate brokers scoff that just a fraction of U.S. office space is occupied by co-working and other flexible workspace options, yet data shows over one-quarter of new leases signed in the past two years came from this burgeoning business.
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FOCUS ON HOSPITALITY
Serendipity Labs’ rollout is a franchise model that draws partners mostly from the hotel industry who have signed area of development agreements for the suburbs or secondary markets, said John Arenas, founder and chief executive.

The franchisee commits between $1 million and $1.5 million, depending on a location’s size, and will operate several sites within its area of operation, the company said.

“We’re targeting hospitality operators, those who own and operate hotels,” Arenas said, noting the company owns sites in Manhattan and Chicago. “They see workplace hospitality today as they saw the maturity of the hotel business 20 or 30 years ago. They’re getting in early,” he said.

Maximum Hospitality, a franchisee of Serendipity Labs in Nashville, Tennessee, already has marketing, accounting, legal and sales teams for the hotels it manages, Arenas said.

“The corporate culture of other companies is really a landlord-tenant culture, whereas our culture is a guest-member service provider culture,” he said.

Source, Herbert Lash, Cracking the co-working code in commercial real estate Reuters.

The Plan: Serendipity Labs at 28 Liberty Street

Office space provider Serendipity Labs likes to say it’s in the “hospitality business,” not in the coworking or office rental industry.

So its first Manhattan location at Fosun International’s 28 Liberty Street (the former One Chase Manhattan Plaza) was designed with more than just office workers in mind.

The Rye, N.Y.-based company, which was founded in 2011, also built out what it calls a “social club” area. It includes a pantry and a separate 75-person conference space for seated events (or 150 standing).

The idea is that even if you aren’t a member that has signed an agreement for a private office, you can become a coworking member and attend social events in the pantry or host events in the conference center.

To create that cool vibe, the design of the space is sleek and clean. Wood panels are used decoratively on the ceilings and the walls of the pantry. The walls are white, and the tables are made of white marble, evoking the style of a high-end bar. And floor-to-ceiling glass allows natural light into the space and provides views of Lower Manhattan.

“It’s about design for service. It’s about design for hospitality,” John Arenas, the chairman and CEO of Serendipity Labs, said during a tour of the space before it opened to members on Monday. “It’s not just an amenity for the members, it’s a club.”

Onsite will be a general manager, a sales manager and a few experience coordinators. The latter are there for organizing member events including ordering food and decorations.

“Anyone can sign a lease and take a space. It’s what’s behind the elegant space that’s hard,” Arenas said.

Serendipity Labs occupies the entire 34,000-square-foot sixth floor of the building, which sits at the corner of Liberty and William Streets. It can fit about 500 people within its 69 private offices and 18 wooden coworking desks.

Source, Kate Tracy, The Plan: Serendipity Labs at 28 Liberty Street Commercial Observer.

Denver’s coworking craze is spreading to the DTC.

New York-based Serendipity Labs leased 15,000 square feet at Plaza Tower One at 6400 S. Fiddlers Green Circle. The coworking space plans to open June 1.

“It was just a perfectly situated building within the heart of the DTC,” said Scott Somerville, who is franchising the new Serendipity location. “If it’s not the hub, it’s one of the two hubs of the DTC … we sit right on the top of the light rail.”

While coworking in Denver has been on a rampage – reaching nearly 1 million square feet according to a BusinessDen tally – the trend is less ubiquitous in the DTC, Somerville said.

“There wasn’t a lot as compared to downtown,” he said.

Somerville is the president and founder of Renascent Hospitality, a hotel management and development company.

“Serendipity Labs reached out to companies like mine as they started to build their inventory of locations across the U.S.,” Somerville said. “What makes us different is our focus on hospitality.”

Somerville purchased franchise rights for Serendipity Labs in Columbus, Denver and Salt Lake City.

Source, Kate Tracy, Coworking space takes crack at the DTC Business Den.

Innovative ‘co-working’ spaces planned in old West Greenville mill

A company that provides flexible workplace options for large companies, those who work out of their homes and others is taking over one of Greenville County’s old mill buildings.

Serendipity Labs Coworking officials said that the former Piedmont Plush Mill located on Highway 123 in and the Village of West Greenville will be its first South Carolina location.

Serendipity Labs offers workplace memberships that include full-time and part-time co-working, dedicated private offices, workstations, team rooms and day passes to its network of work lounges. It also provides co-working franchise opportunities. The Rye, New York-based company was founded by John Arenas in 2011.

Serendipity Labs lists locations in New York City; Nashville, Tennessee; Aventura, Florida; Bethesda, Maryland; Chicago, Illinois; Columbus, Ohio; Dallas, Texas; Ridgewood, New Jersey; and Stamford, Connecticut, with 125 company-owned, managed and franchised locations in urban, suburban and secondary markets that are under development in 19 states.

Trey Scott, a veteran hotel professional and entrepreneur who is the franchise owner for the West Greenville location, said, “Serendipity Labs isn’t your typical co-working experience, just like the Plush Mill site isn’t your typical location. We believe the renovation and rebirth of this historic structure will be one of the most talked about developments in Greenville for quite some time.”

Source, Carla Field, Innovative ‘co-working’ spaces planned in old West Greenville mill WYFF News 4.

Greenville’s newest co-working space coming to former Plush Mill on Easley Bridge Road

The old Plush Mill in west Greenville will soon become the city’s newest co-working space.

Located at 12 Easley Bridge Road, and a short distance from downtown Greenville and the Village of West Greenville, the site has been under development since October. By this summer it will be the new home of Serendipity Labs, a flexible workplace company that caters to companies of all sizes.

Serendipity Labs has 10 co-working sites currently open in New Jersey, New York, Chicago, Florida, the Washington, D.C., area and Dallas. An additional 125 — including the one across from St. Francis Hospital in Greenville as well as another in Charleston — are in some stage of development, said John Arenas, Serendipity Labs’ chairman and CEO.

The Plush Mill site, with its bank of 24-pane glass windows, is less than half a mile from the massive mixed-use development planned for the old Judson Mill site.

More on Plush Mill: Downtown Greenville grows to take in historic mill

Nearby: Judson developers leverage rehab incentives to preserve mill

Gentrification fears: Judson’s challenge: Providing homes for ‘real people’

Once complete, it will be the first Serendipity Labs space in South Carolina, said Trey Scott, the Greenville franchise owner. Like most of the co-working company’s franchisees, Scott comes from the hospitality industry.

“Serendipity Labs isn’t your typical co-working experience,” Scott said in a statement. “Just like the Plush Mill site isn’t your typical location. We believe the renovation and rebirth of this historic structure will be one of the most talked about developments in Greenville for quite some time.”

Source, Anna B. Mitchell, Greenville’s newest co-working space coming to former Plush Mill on Easley Bridge Road Upstate Business Journal.

Serendipity Labs Coworking inks deal for Plush Mill site in Greenville

The former Piedmont Plush Mill located on Highway 123 between downtown and the Village of West Greenville soon will be home to a new model of coworking — Serendipity Labs — an upscale hospitality brand offering a flexible workplace option for large companies, mobile professionals, and independent workers.

This will be the first location for Serendipity Labs Coworking in South Carolina, said Trey Scott, a veteran hotel professional and entrepreneur who is the franchise owner of the location slated to open this summer.

Shelby Dodson of CBRE represented the landlord, and Conor Brennan with JLL in Charlotte, N.C., represented the tenant in the transaction. Mark Peters of Fountain Inn bought the dilapidated industrial complex at 200 Easley Bridge Road in October 2016 with plans to renovate the 24,000-square-foot historic mill building into creative office space.

“Serendipity Labs isn’t your typical co-working experience,” Scott said. “Just like the Plush Mill site isn’t your typical location. We believe the renovation and rebirth of this historic structure will be one of the most talked about developments in Greenville for quite some time.”

Recognizable to passersby because of its bank of 24-pane glass windows, the 2.94-acre site was recently annexed into Greenville city limits in anticipation of its rebirth as Serendipity Labs.

“We are taking something old in Greenville and making it new again,” Scott said. “That goes for the building and the traditional coworking model.”

Serendipity Labs was founded by industry leader John Arenas in 2011 with a singular vision: to build a network of inspirational members-only workplaces, combining state-of-the-art workplace design, technology, and security with the highest hospitality service-level to deliver a peerless workplace experience. With 10 locations currently open in large metropolitan markets and 125 under development, it is expanding with company-owned, managed, and franchised locations in urban, suburban, and secondary markets using the same model as the hotel industry.

Serendipity Labs is designed to encourage serendipitous interactions that result in new ideas and business connections through a variety of work-style settings and events which will be curated by local Greenville staff.

Source, Ariel Turner, Serendipity Labs Coworking inks deal for Plush Mill site in Greenville Upstate Business Journal.

It always surprises people that the idea of working from home is better than working from home

For home workers, the attractions are flexibility in organising workload, a chance to focus without distraction, and no commuting slog. Drawbacks include the need for self-discipline, possible loneliness and a sense of being forgotten about.

“It always surprises people that the idea of working from home is better than working from home,” says John Arenas, chief executive of US co-working company Serendipity Labs, which provides shared office space.

Employers are looking at ways to improve remote working. “Best practice is for companies to develop contracts based on an individual employee’s needs and capacities,” says Prof Spreitzer. In addition, some companies create a virtual break room, for example, where remote workers can join in conversations with on-site colleagues.

To help online collaboration, Fiona Cannon, director of diversity and inclusion at Lloyds Banking Group, says the company has introduced a live digital tool called Hive, where employees can connect with colleagues across the business, and runs “Ask me anything” sessions: “It has created real innovation and the ability to get things done quicker.”

Some companies are experimenting with booking slots in shared office spaces. These give remote workers a more work-like environment, but with less of a commute, while still shrinking headquarters office space.

Mr Arenas says about half of Serendipity Labs members work for companies that offer some staff an option to work there part of the time; some companies rent a dedicated space for a team as an alternative to conventional office leasing.

While shared office space might help solve remote workers’ loneliness, it does not fix the problem of an organisation that wants to improve how staff mix with colleagues in person. Some companies are experimenting with their own office environments. Vanessa Sans, founder of Barcelona-based Happy Labs, runs workshops on how best to instil a good working atmosphere. This involves emulating the physical features of co-working spaces — a mix of fixed and flexible desks, private spaces and meeting rooms — and building a community through networking events and workshops.

Source, Emma De Vita, Rethink forced by the loneliness of long-distance work Financial times.

Corporate Flexibility Driving Serendipity Labs, Co-Working Growth

Fresh from signing its second Atlanta lease in Alpharetta, a New York-based co-working operator is next planning to outfit the Interstate 75 corridor with up to four locations, all the way up to Cartersville — an hour northwest of Downtown Atlanta.

Serendipity Labs inked a deal for 26K SF at 100 North Point Center East, a six-story, 130K SF office building off Georgia 400 in North Fulton County. At the same time, Serendipity secured a second franchise owner in Atlanta with plans to open four locations along the I-75 spine, including in the Cumberland/Galleria area, Marietta, Kennesaw and Cartersville markets. That is on top of three more planned along Georgia 400, a company-owned venue in Midtown as well as another handful along the Interstate 85 corridor, Serendipity Labs CEO John Arenas said.

The focus on the suburbs is deliberate. Rents are cheaper than they are in the hotter, in-town office markets like Midtown and Buckhead, where Serendipity Labs is debuting at Three Alliance Center. But Arenas said the co-working firm’s main customer base — mid- to senior-level executives and small-business owners — tend to want to work closer to their homes instead of commuting into the city

“You have an individual in the suburbs who really … is a decision-maker and is confused on where he wants to work,” Arenas said. “Our brand is really not focused on the fragile tech-startup world. It’s always been a platform for trusted knowledge workers. And that’s where they live.”

Serendipity is among a host of co-working operators in Atlanta now expanding into the suburbs. And while still a fraction of the overall office market, the supply of co-working space has reached more than 1.2M SF in Atlanta, according to a recent Colliers International estimate.

Co-working is more than a fad, and the fuel underlying it has less to do with cool or splashy spaces or chatting with people from all walks of life, Cresa Atlanta principal Bob Misdom said. It has to do with corporate America’s love of flexibility.

Source, Jarred Schenke, Corporate Flexibility Driving Serendipity Labs, Co-Working Growth, Bisnow.

Watch out for more industry-specific spaces and more participation from large corporations.

In 2017, it’s projected that more than 1.1 million people went to work, backpacks and big ideas in tow, at 13,800 coworking spaces worldwide, according to the 2017 Global Coworking Survey. To put this in perspective, if every coworking space was owned by the same company, it would have more worldwide locations than Walmart. Coworking memberships have enjoyed steady growth since the idea became a reality. However, as the nature of work evolves and the demand for new technology explodes, we can expect coworking to look differently in 2020 than it does today. As we continue to forge into this brave new world of work and technology, it’s only natural to predict that coworking will take on a brave, new path as well. Below are three trends that will shape the future of coworking in 2018 and beyond.

1. Continued expansion of national players into middle market of the country
Several huge companies made headlines in 2017 with plans to relocate or expand into what many refer to as “flyover country,” the Midwest. And it’s not just Chicago, either. Cities like Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Columbus and Detroit are seeing expansion from national names in coworking like WeWork, Serendipity Labs and Industrious, with some planting multiple locations within one city. The growth is certainly justified. Millennials, who will make up 75 percent of the workforce by 2030, crave these open, flexible work formats. As millennials and their Gen Z successors begin setting off on their own entrepreneurial pursuits, the expectation is that the demand for coworking will only increase, forever changing the commercial office landscape

Source, John Wechsler, What Will Coworking Spaces Look Like in 2020?, Entrepreneur.

10 Coworking Trends From The Pros

I spoke to executives at leading co-working spaces from the around the country, to examine the most significant trends in the space. Here my takeaways and their thoughts on what to expect this year:

1) Major Divergence

“We’re seeing a major divergence in the industry itself. Coworking offerings are really trending in three directions: small local/regional offerings (member managed); larger regional/multi-city models (professionally managed); larger national/global models (professionally managed). Larger players will saturate large/high density cities and will eventually need to move into tier 2 and 3 markets and will do so through acquisition.” – Greg Hilton – Co-Founder and Managing Partner of SOCO

2) Increased Specialization

“In order for brands old and new to differentiate themselves, we are seeing increased specialization in co-working concepts.” – Alex Kopicki, CEO of Kinglet

3) Larger Per-Company Headcounts

“Corporate demand has reached tipping point. They are “outsourcing” real estate with requirements for 50 – 100 people.” John Arenas, Founder and CEO of Serendipity Labs

Source, Adam Mendler, 10 Coworking Trends From The Pros, Buzzfeed.

Peek inside the coolest coworking spaces in Fairfield County

As technology advances, working from home is becoming more and more common, though being isolated in your home can be a bit lonely.

To address this, it’s understandable that co-working spaces have become more popular throughout the country and Fairfield County is home to several great options.

A dozen of companies are offering shared office spaces in Fairfield County, including Stamford, Bridgeport and Westport, according to Yelp. Some of these new spaces have raving reviews from freelancers or other professionals who work on the go or get tired of working from home.

Many of the top shared office spaces are equipped with productivity necessities including natural light, coffee machines. Several have multiple options for members to make the most out of their workday in their ideal comfort state, including traditional offices with a door, comfy couches and standing desk opportunities, among others.

Source, Heather Leighton and Sophia Tewa, Peek inside the coolest coworking spaces in Fairfield County, ctpost.

Atlanta Co-Working Boom Puts Pressure On Traditional Office Leases

Atlanta has become one of the top five markets in the U.S. for co-working. As the number of tech companies and startups in the city grows, co-working companies have acquired properties in Atlanta’s urban core and surrounding suburbs.

The increasing availability of co-working spaces has strained the traditional office market. The proportion of U.S. co-working members who have moved from traditional offices to co-working rose from 23% in 2014 to 37% in 2016. While Atlanta office net absorption was positive, rising from 345K SF in Q3 to 906K SF in Q4, according to Colliers, the data does not account for the percentage of office leases made by co-working companies. Beyond the numbers, Atlanta owners have to compete with highly amenitized, modern workspaces that offer the flexibility that young, high-growth businesses demand.

Several national co-working providers have grown exponentially in Atlanta. Earlier this month, New York-based Serendipity Labs signed a franchise agreement to launch 17 co-working locations in Atlanta, Charleston and Greenville. Serendipity Labs secured its first Atlanta location at Three Alliance Center in late 2017.

Source, Travis Gonzalez, Atlanta Co-Working Boom Puts Pressure On Traditional Office Leases, Bisnow.

Serendipity Labs has been known for its hospitality-focused approach to serviced workspaces and for powering its growth through the franchise model. Twenty-seventeen proved to be a successful year for the coworking brand, opening various new locations both in established and new markets.

Following the company’s announcement that it awarded franchises for 22 locations across 4 new US markets, Allwork.Space spoke with Paula Gomprecht, VP of Marketing, to learn more about their plans for 2018, international expansion, and their brokerage partnership with JLL.

Allwork.Space: How many new locations did Serendipity Labs open in 2017, and where?

Paula Gomprecht: We currently have 125 locations under development across the US. In 2017, we opened Bethesda, Maryland; Dallas, Texas, and Columbus, Ohio, with Nashville and New York City under construction. We also announced signed leases for new locations in Denver, Alpharetta, Atlanta, Houston, and Greenville, SC.

Allwork.Space: Will any of the upcoming 22 locations in Phoenix, St. Louis, Indianapolis, and Pittsburgh be company-owned?

In each market we are opening at least one company-owned location in the central business districts, while our franchisees open in the suburbs. This is part of our strategy of creating a hub and spoke network in each market.

Source, Cecilia Amador, Serendipity Labs Discusses International Expansion Plans And JLL Partnership, Allwork.Space.

New co-working spaces often struggle to reach prospective tenants because they lack backing from brokers. Serendipity Labs is approaching the issue with a teamwork-makes-the-dream-work mentality and has brought in JLL to pilot the program in Dallas by leasing up its space in Uptown Arts.

Office tenants are gravitating toward flexible/shorter leases. Co-working spaces are one way to that end but often suffer from a disconnect between themselves and brokers because the business model is unfamiliar and unconventional.

Serendipity’s solution is a partnership with JLL. JLL’s role is essentially that of a listing agent, according to Serendipity Labs founder and CEO John Arenas.

“Much like a landlord hires a real estate company to market their space, we’re doing the same thing,” Arenas said.

Paying brokers to wrangle deals for co-working facilities is not a new phenomenon. What is new is a partnership resembling that of an office building and a listing agency where the agency gets an additional commission for filling the space.

Dallas is a pilot location for this strategy, and Arenas is pleased with the results so far.

One of the advantages to having a separate entity representing the co-working space is that brokers feel they can trust the third party to keep negotiations private, especially in cases where companies are downsizing, according to Arenas.

Employing JLL’s name recognition helps Serendipity Labs bridge the gap and garner brokers’ trust. Arenas said this is key in his company’s pursuit of enterprise-level tenants.

“The brokerage community is very important to us because we are targeting larger groups … real estate brokers, they have a client who has a need for a certain amount of space, and they want to be able to trust the process of bringing that person in,” Arenas said. “By having JLL as our partner that interfaces directly with the brokerage community, other brokers know that that is a trusted approach to bringing a client in.”

Uptown Arts is one of eight Serendipity co-working spaces planned for the DFW Metroplex. Arenas sees it as an area full of potential for the co-working industry and sees his leasing strategy as an important method for establishing legitimacy in the market.

Source, Jeremiah Jensen, Serendipity Labs Pilots Broker Partnership Program In Dallas, Biz Now Dallas-Fort Worth.

Serendipity Labs, Inc. today announced it has awarded exclusive development areas to franchisees who will add 22 locations in four cities across the country. The combined development schedule represents more than $30 million in additional capital for the coworking network in St. Louis, MO; Phoenix, AZ; Indianapolis, IN; and Pittsburgh, PA.

Terra Properties, led by CEO Robert Bowman, will develop St. Louis, MO and will open six Labs in total. Alex Perchuk and Robert Baker are partners in Advantage Partners, LLC for Phoenix, AZ, and Indianapolis, IN, and in Triple 5 Group, LLC for Pittsburgh , PA. They will open they will eight, three and five Labs, respectively.

“Our growth strategy includes urban and suburban networks in each market we develop so that our members can choose where and when they work. This allows our enterprise customers to support an increasingly mobile workforce while improving their quality of life,” says John Arenas, founder and CEO of Serendipity Labs. “Through a mix of franchised and company-owned Labs, we are creating unmatched coverage that meets the needs of trusted knowledge workers and millennials who have migrated to the suburbs.”

The company is aggressively growing with an owned and franchise location development schedule for 124 locations across nineteen states. Each franchise partner will benefit from a national coworking network that provides centralized marketing, sales, technology and operational support.

Source, PR Newswire, Serendipity Labs Coworking Awards Franchises for Four New U.S. Markets, Morningstar.

Real estate is often a significant expenditure for companies. Even large private companies like Dropbox and Uber spend tens of millions of dollars a year in leases in San Francisco, for example. Some large companies like Microsoft have already instituted the new standards.

A new accounting rule due to go into effect by 2019 will force public companies to disclose office leases on their balance sheets. Because it will increase companies’ reported liabilities—potentially making their financial position look a little less healthy—the pending rule is prompting finance executives to re-examine how much leased real estate they really need.

But the rules appear to provide a kind of loophole for space rented in co-working offices. A company’s rental agreement with a co-working company may be treated as a service, not as a lease, if the co-working company has the right to relocate the tenants, said Sean Torr, managing director at Deloitte. This could potentially make co-working spaces more appealing for companies once the rules go into effect.

John Arenas, CEO of New York-based Serendipity Labs, said he has already seen evidence that large companies are thinking about the changes: About a dozen large companies have told him they are looking to offload their small leases into co-working space. “Sophisticated CFOs have been watching the rule develop over the last couple years and have been moving their strategy,” he said.

Source, Cory Weinberg and Alfred Lee, Co-Working Startups Eye New Growth Driver: Accounting Change, The Information.

New rules would treat conventional leases as liabilities.

A change in federal accounting rules taking effect by 2019 could give co-working companies a major boost.

Under the new rules, public companies will have to list office leases as liabilities on their balance sheets, which could make them look worse on paper. But there’s a loophole: if public companies sign a lease with a co-working space provider, and if the provider has a right to move the tenant, that lease won’t have to be listed as a liability.

Several co-working companies are now using the rule change as part of their pitch to potential tenants, The Information reported. Knotel’s CEO Amol Sarva called the reform the “Y2K of regulatory change.”

Source, Konrad Putzier, The accounting reform that could be a game changer for co-working firms, The Real Deal.

Downtown Dallas’ latest coworking center looks more like the boardroom than the dorm room.

While some of the new shared-office spaces have an industrial look and feature frat boy favs like pool tables and dartboards, Serendipity Labs’ new project in the Arts District is sleek and corporate.
“We really are aiming with the brand to be upscale,” said John Arenas, founder and CEO of Serendipity Labs. “We want our customers to feel valued and comfortable.

“About 40 percent of our members are women and about half are established companies,” he said. “It’s a little off putting to them if all of a sudden there is a ping pong match going on in their office.”

Serendipity Labs has just opened its first North Texas location in the KPMG Plaza building on Ross Avenue. The New York-based firm has about 29,000 square feet of space in the lobby and on the 17th floor of the high-rise.
The ground floor area has a lounge and coffee bar plus a flexible gathering space.

“We wanted to have a retail presence and show our brand,” Arenas said. “You can use it for an off-site meeting or an event.

Source, Steve Brown, New shared office center brings upscale coworking to Dallas Arts District, The Dallas Morning News.

Serendipity Labs opened 29,000 square feet of co-working space at KPMG Plaza at Uptown Arts on Monday

The New York-based co-working concept also has plans to expand elsewhere in DFW, and has a letter of intent to move forward in Frisco.

Remote workers, freelancers, and small businesses now have another co-working option in downtown Dallas. New York-based Serendipity Labs opened 29,000 square feet of co-working space at KPMG Plaza at Uptown Arts on Monday.

Concurrent with the July announcement that it would lease space on the 17th floor and lobby level of KPMG Plaza, Craig Hall, founder and chairman of HALL Group, invested in the upscale co-working concept that focuses on hospitality-style service to members.

The space dubbed Serendipity Labs Dallas Uptown Arts encompasses 3,000 square feet on the ground floor of KPMG Plaza and the remaining 26,000 square feet on the 17th floor. Serendipity Labs CEO John Arenas says depending on membership, the location could support 250 or 300 members.

Source, Julia Bunch, Serendipity Labs Opens First Dallas Location in Arts District, D Magazine.

Young Ones to Watch: Kristen Pike of Serendipity Labs, Inc.

Serendipity Labs, Inc.’s Director of Franchise Sales and Development offers advice for other up-and-comers in the industry.

1851: What was it that drew you into franchising?

Kristen Pike, Director of Franchise Sales and Development for Serendipity Labs: I was raised in a very business oriented family. The desire to grow and promote a brand was important in our household and those values have stayed with me throughout life. What drew me to franchising was being able to educate others who may be hesitant about owning a business. Franchising allows individuals to invest in themselves, while capitalizing on a brand that’s already invented and tested the wheel. Franchising gives the franchisee a piece of mind knowing that they are backed by industry leaders who have done all the trial and error, and who have integrated what they’ve learned to be successful in development, operations, marketing & technology. As a franchisor, we provide guidance with financial models and are quick to resolve issues as they come in or before they happen. I love that I get to work with entrepreneurs who want to be part of something bigger, and understand that partnering up with a solid franchise brand can be their ticket to major success.

Source, Lydia Heerwagen, Young Ones to Watch: Kristen Pike of Serendipity Labs, Inc. 1851 Franchise.

Three Alliance is the first of eight locations Serendipity Labs plans to open across metro Atlanta

New York-based coworking company Serendipity Labs is entering Atlanta with a prime spot on the 21st-floor of Buckhead’s Three Alliance Center tower — the first step in a much larger expansion.
The 26,000-square-foot space is scheduled to open in the spring.

John Arenas, founder and CEO of Serendipity Labs, called Three Alliance a stunning architectural gem with tree-canopied views of Buckhead and floor to ceiling glass.
It’s the first of eight locations Serendipity Labs plans to open across metro Atlanta. It’s finalizing another lease in Alpharetta soon.
Serendipity Labs joins fellow coworking companies such as WeWork and Industrious, which continue expanding intown and in the suburbs.
Coworking is a global trend that only fairly recently began affecting the Atlanta office market. Last year, it accounted for 5 million square feet of space in Asia, according to CoreNet Global and Cushman & Wakefield. Earlier in November, Boston Properties’ CEO Owen Thomas said the company told investors coworking now represented about 20 percent of net office absorption in the United States.
It’s not just startups occupying the space. About half of Serendipity Labs’ members are employees of large, international companies working remotely.
In the United States, it’s large companies that are helping to drive coworking. That’s because they are shifting more of their business units out of the headquarters and regional offices to off-site coworking environments, Arenas said.

Source, Douglas Sams, “New York coworking company enters Atlanta market, leases Buckhead’s Three Alliance Center”, Atlanta Business Chronicle

Serendipity Labs’ John Arenas is convinced that a flexible, empowering way of doing business is the future, starting now.

Entrepreneur John Arenas looked at an old car dealership in Rye and saw the future. His future — and possibly yours. He converted the building on Theodore Fremd Avenue, located a short walk from the heart of town, into Serendipity Labs, one of Westchester’s first coworking facilities, or basically an office for hire. Dispel images you may have of an army of Millennials huddled around laptops, however. Thanks to Arenas’ vision, the Rye space, which opened in 2013, offers sleek design and advanced technology specifically targeting the needs of the modern professional. “Think of it as coworking for grownups,” he explains, a notion that is gaining ground.

With seven US locations and more on the way, plus a recent deal signed with a counterpart in China, Serendipity Labs is expanding rapidly, along with the coworking industry at large. Analysts expect the participation to increase at a compounded-annual-growth rate of 41 percent into 2020.

While certainly pleased about such positive numbers, Arenas points out that his ambition transcends financial success. “Getting up in the morning to make more money really isn’t the big motivator,” he says. “It’s more about a creative process, to build an experience that fits people’s needs. Our facilities are really about improving lives through freedom and choice, enabling people to work how and when they want to.”

Source, Gale Ritterhoff, “Improving the Workforce-Workplace Interface”, 914INC., Westchester Magazine

NATIONAL REPORT—Hotel companies are always focused on hospitality—making guests feel like they’re at home, a part of the family—but some are looking at a complimentary vertical to expand their business—coworking.

“Over the past five years, the coworking industry has grown from a hip, creative class movement for techies and millennials into a mainstream workplace option for the U.S. workforce,” said John Arenas, founder and CEO of Serendipity Labs Inc., a lifestyle hospitality company, offering premium workplace memberships, special events and work environments for members. “The workplace, like business travel, has now been consumerized with increasingly mobile employees seeking to work where and when they wish. In this very short time span, coworking has attracted billions of dollars in institutional investment into a sophisticated set of national networks.”

Source: Nicole Carlino, “Hotel companies expand to coworking spaces”, Hotel Business

The way people travel is changing. Technology is not only shaping the way in which people share their experiences, it is also shaping where and how they do it. Home-sharing tech companies such as Airbnb have existed for less than a decade, but have managed to cause significant disruption in the hospitality industry. This disruption is forcing hotel companies to revamp the traditional model of doing business and to reinvent themselves to compete.

“One of the things that people are trending away from is the idea of people spending time in their rooms. [Before] it was about larger rooms and larger suites and people maximizing the ability to do things in their room, [but] younger guests are more interested in spending time in common spaces,” Colliers International Valuation Services Director Ryan Sikorski said. Here are six ways hotel brands are reinventing themselves to stay relevant during a time of tech dominance and intense competition.

#1. Coworking
The concept of co-working has risen in popularity over the past few years. While spaces have traditionally been located primarily in office buildings, that is changing as hoteliers appeal to business travelers by including co-working options in their facilities.
These corporate amenities are particularly essential as Airbnb begins to target the business traveler demographic.
“Airbnb’s next stated objective is to eliminate some of the stigma that goes with the business traveler staying in an Airbnb. They are making efforts to increase the comfort level that a business traveler would have going that route,” Sikorski said.
Serendipity Labs, a company that delivers co-working as an upscale hospitality brand, saw an opportunity to merge the two industries and recently 3H Group Hotels, SSM Hospitality and Hunter Hotel Advisors joined the concept as franchisees.
They are not the only ones jumping on this trend. Serendipity has more than 100 properties under development.
“There’s this huge market where people want to work and the way people work is changing. We think we’re way out in front [of the hospitality industry]. This is the early days of this category and we’re setting standards,” Serendipity Labs CEO John Arenas said.
LiquidSpace, an online marketplace for flex space based out of Palo Alto, California, has also ventured into the hospitality industry. More than 30 major hotel chains, including Hilton, DoubleTree, Embassy Suites and Hampton have signed on to offer office and meeting space for users of the app.
While Marriott International launched its own workplace rental concept, called Workplace On Demand, it is also working with LiquidSpace to market its services on the app. Spaces are for both hotel guests and business professionals who need to quickly drop in and work.

Source: Lara O’Keefe, “6 Ways Hotel Companies Are Reinventing Their Product To Compete”, Bisnow National

A new co-working group aimed at more established companies and veteran workers is taking aim at Atlanta with a dozen locations.

New York-based Serendipity Labs has inked a franchise agreement with a host of hospitality executives to launch 17 co-working locations in Atlanta, Charleston and Greenville. That group is led by 3H Group Hotels CEO Hiren Desai, SSM Hospitality CEO Paresh Master and Atlanta-based hotel brokerage firm Hunter Hotel Advisors Vice President Trey Scott. The partnership will be one of two Serendipity franchisees in Atlanta, where the company expects to open a dozen locations, both franchised and corporate-owned offices, Serendipity founder and CEO John Arenas said. The firm already is in talks to lease space in Buckhead and North Fulton, but Arenas declined to identify the buildings.

Serendipity Labs most recently raised $11M from Dallas developer Craig Hall to help fuel its nationwide growth. The firm is growing through franchises, joint ventures and company-owned locations, with more than 100 sites underway at $1M each, company officials said.

Source: Jarred Schenke, “Atlanta Gaining Another National Co-Working Player,” Bisnow

The first of New York-based Serendipity Labs’ Columbus locations is ready for tenants. Serendipity Labs Columbus-Capitol Square at 21 E. State St. will celebrate its grand opening on Thursday, September 28.

The Downtown coworking and office space is one of two for the franchise in Columbus. The local labs will be run by business partners Trevor Warner and Scott Somerville ofRenascent Hospitality – which is reflective of the hospitality mentality Serendipity Labs wants to see in its spaces.

Occupying the entirety of the second floor of the Fifth Third building, 14,000 square feet of space that was once a gym has been transformed into 54 private offices, open coworking area and an Ideation Room.

There are a few single-person offices, but Warner says Serendipity Labs focuses more on team rooms. Offices vary in size, accommodating teams of two to three, all the way up to eight to 10. The lock-and-key secure spaces come outfitted with desks and chairs, and additional equipment like phones and file cabinets can be coordinated through Serendipity Labs. Smaller offices start at $899/month, and bigger spaces at $1599/month. The price includes amenities like 24/7 access, use of meeting rooms, secure high-speed internet and guest reception services.

Source: Susan Post, “First Look: Serendipity Labs Downtown Location Nearing Grand Opening,” metropreneur

Now, Columbus is getting in on the Serendipity brand.

Scott Somerville, CEO of Renascent Hospitality, and his business partner, Trevor Warner, opened one on E. State Street downtown and is planning to open another in the Short North in March.

“We couldn’t be more pleased with the results of the space,” Somerville said of the State Street facility. The two bought the rights for Columbus and Denver to ensure that they would be sole developers of Serendipity in both markets.

Somerville said they intend to open five Serendipity Labs in each city in the next five years.

“The Grand Opening is scheduled for September 28,” Warner said. “It’s just a great event to … launch the space.” Somerville said there has been a lot of interest in the space, with most of it coming since it opened.

The Short North Serendipity Labs location is set to open at 900 N. High St. in place of the old UDF.

“It’s going to be a beautiful four-story building located right in the heart of the Short North with great outdoor space,” Warner said. “So far, everything looks great.”

Source: Miranda Tomlinson, “New co-working space open in the heart of downtown (Video),” Columbus Business First

In around two years, Sugar Land’s old Imperial Sugar refinery area will be redeveloped into Imperial Market, a $200 million historic mixed-use project led by the developers behind downtown’s Houston Pavilions, now known as Green Street.

Recently, the project secured a co-working tenant, which could signal the industry’s broader push into Houston’s suburbs.

Rye, New York-based Serendipity Labs will occupy 15,939 square feet in the mixed-use development, per a Serendipity Labs spokesperson. The company made its first splash in Houston last year when it signed an exclusive franchising agreement with Houston-based Cameron Management and announced its plans to open 10 locations throughout the Bayou City.

Gensler will design Serendipity Labs’ space in Imperial Market.

Source: Cara Smith, “Exclusive: Imperial Sugar mixed-use lands co-working tenant,” Houston Business Journal

DALLAS—Craig Hall, the founder and chairman of HALL Group, not only believes in the coworking concept enough to feature a Serendipity Labs Coworking location, the first in the metroplex at KPMG Plaza at Uptown Arts in the Dallas Arts District, but he’s investing in it. The coworking company has attracted more than $125 million of capital for development of its network (more than $100 million is from area franchisees and more than $24 million is in direct corporate funding).

“Serendipity Labs offers an upscale coworking experience and the stature and location of Uptown Arts make it an ideal location for us,” says John Arenas, founder and CEO of Serendipity Labs. “I am also thrilled to welcome Craig Hall and HALL Group as an investor. His vision and entrepreneurial spirit will be invaluable as we grow our network throughout the US and internationally.”

The Serendipity Labs at KPMG Plaza at Uptown Arts will feature a 29,000-square-foot workplace on the building’s 17th floor and lobby level. KPMG Plaza at Uptown Arts is located within the Uptown Arts development in the center of the Dallas Arts District and is home to several businesses, including KPMG, Jackson Walker, Teknion, UMB Bank, Spencer Stuart, Sedgwick and HALL Group. This lease brings KPMG Plaza at Uptown Arts to approximately 85% leased.

Source: Lisa Brown, “Serendipity Coworking Location is the First in DFW,” Globest.com

While some entrepreneurial trends come and go, the shared space offices known as coworking have continued to thrive in 2017. Just recently, The Hive, Serendipity Labs and Haven Collective have been announced along side existing spots like The Salt Mines, Qwirk and Industrious.

Although market saturation seems like it could be an issue at this point, each coworking space has managed to carve out its own niche — providing different levels of amenities, a range of price points, and a range of locations throughout Central Ohio.

“We feel like the Downtown location, there is nothing like the second floor of the Fifth Third Building,” stated Serendipity Labs partner Trevor Warner in a recent interview with TheMetropreneur.com. Their plans call for a second space located inside the new UDF building in the Short North as well.

Source: Walker Evans, “New Coworking Spaces Opening in Short North, Upper Arlington and 5xNW,” columbusunderground.com

Corporations’ flight from the suburbs to cities can play out like a bad breakup: One party has moved on and found someone new, while the other puts on a brave face and pretends it doesn’t matter. Each may even be seen hastily courting others to show their previous partner that they’re okay. But there’s no way to avoid it. A once-promising relationship has ended.

It’s a situation many American suburbs find themselves in today. After decades of matching up with the country’s largest corporations and providing the prime highway-adjacent real estate they needed for massive office parks, suburbs are being abandoned for office space in urban centers and the pursuit of something younger and more exciting: millennial workers.

“It’s all about one thing: talent,” says Tom Murphy, a senior resident fellow at the Urban Land Institute. “For the first time in history we’re seeing jobs move to where people are, rather than vice versa. For companies, it’s all about being where talent wants to be.”

Source: Patrick Sisson, “Corporations are leaving suburbs: Can anything reverse the trend?,” Curbed

WeWork is a real estate business that acts like a technology company. It’s backed by powerful Silicon Valley venture capitalists, hires data scientists and DevOps engineers and sports a valuation that’s about 20 times annual revenue.

John Arenas is taking a very different approach with his co-working business Serendipity Labs. Founded in 2011, a year after the launch of WeWork, Serendipity is sticking with investors who live, sleep and breathe real estate.

Serendipity, based in Rye, New York — 30 miles north of WeWork’s Manhattan headquarters — has just raised $11.3 million from investors including billionaire Craig Hall, one of the top real estate developers in Dallas. The company disclosed the financing in a filing on Monday.

“All of our investment to date has been from strategic capital and not venture capital,” Arenas said, in an interview with CNBC. The business is focused on the “shift from long-term conventional leases to flexible, variable real estate. To do that you need to find your way a bit,” he said.

Source: Ari Levy, “Why WeWork competitor Serendipity Labs is ignoring VCs and taking money from real estate investors,” CNBC

On the heels of its namesake tenant expanding its lease by 11K SF, KPMG Plaza at Uptown Arts inked 29K SF with Serendipity Labs.

Hall Group founder and Chairman Craig Hall also invested in the upscale co-working concept. Since its founding in 2011, Serendipity Labs has raised $100M from franchises and $24M from corporate funding.

This lease represents its entrance into the Dallas market. Serendipity Labs has more than 100 locations of owned and managed franchises throughout the U.S. Other Texas locations include Fort Worth and Sugar Land. It it also rapidly expanding in the Washington, D.C., area.

The co-working concept will lease 29K SF on KPMG Plaza’s 17th floor and lobby, bringing occupancy to 85%. The hospitality-style tenant will offer memberships, dedicated offices, project team rooms and programming. It will be operated by Serendipity Labs’ franchisee, Worth Coworking.

Source: Julia Bunch, “New Co-Working Player Leases 29K SF At KPMG Plaza As Craig Hall Invests In Concept,” Bisnow Dallas/Fort Worth

A new co-working opportunity will be opening in Dallas’ Arts District in November. Serendipity Labs Coworking has announced that its first Dallas-Fort Worth location will be at KPMG Plaza Uptown Arts. The New York-based company signed on for 29,000 square feet, split between the building’s lobby level and 17th floor.

“We believe that the future of the workplace includes co-working as a new way for businesses to spur innovation, support increasing worker mobility, and recruit top talent,” Craig Hall, founder and chairman of HALL Group, said in a statement. Hall, who recently won (along with his wife, Kathryn) EY’s Master Entrepreneur of The Year award, is also an investor in the co-working company.

Source: Lily Corral, “Craig Hall Invests in Co-working Company,” D Magazine

A New York-based shared office concept is bringing its first upscale coworking concept to the Dallas Arts District with the help of Dallas developer Craig Hall, who recently invested an undisclosed sum in the company.

Along with being an investor, Hall will be the landlord for Serendipity Labs Coworking, which plans to open its 29,000-square-foot Texas hub on the 17th floor and ground floor of KPMG Plaza at Uptown Arts…

This kind of workplace helps spur innovation, support worker mobility and recruit top talent, Hall said, adding that Serendipity’s high-level of hospitality helped seal the deal.

The hub-like office in the Dallas Arts District will serve as a launching pad for other Serendipity Labs Coworking offices in North Texas. Last year, the company announced plans to open nine locations in the region.

“We think there is enough pent-up demand in Dallas-Fort Worth to justify eight really good locations,” said Doug Denman, president of Worth Coworking. “We have begun looking at the markets we will want to be in.”

Source: Candace Carlisle, “New York-based shared office concept to put Texas hub in Arts District,” Dallas Business Journal

A New York-based shared office provider has landed in Dallas’ Arts District with its first project.

Serendipity Labs Coworking is taking 29,000 square feet in the KPMG Plaza tower on Ross Avenue near Pearl Street for its first local location.

The building’s developer, Craig Hall, also is making a capital investment in the shared office firm, which has more than 100 locations under development.

“We looked at a variety of co-working spaces,” Hall said. “Their co-working approach we thought was unique and superior to everyone else in the market. It’s a higher end.”

Serendipity Labs is taking space on KPMG Plaza’s 17th floor and in the lobby.

Source: Steve Brown, “Shared office provider heads to Dallas Arts District with new operation,” Dallas News / Dallas Morning News

STAMFORD — Serendipity Labs plans a major expansion of its shared workspace center in the city’s South End by the end of this year to meet growing demand, the firm’s chief executive told Hearst Connecticut Media on Friday.

Opened in September, the Serendipity hub now covers about 13,000 square feet on the ground floor at 700 Canal St. The expansion would add about 9,000 square feet on the same level, bringing the total footprint to about 22,000 square feet. With the extra space, Serendipity would occupy the entire first floor.

By growing, Serendipity would have room to increase its membership from approximately 160 to about 300. All of the complex’s existing “dedicated workspaces” of private offices and team rooms are sold and occupied, with a waiting list in place, according to founder and CEO John Arenas.

Source: Paul Schott, “Serendipity Labs plans expansion of Canal Street co-working center,” Stamford Advocate

We begin with a deceptively complex question: Are people who work at coworking spaces called coworkers?

If so, should they be? Would the word still apply to our fellow employees at a job, regardless of office setting? Did the pioneers of the coworking revolution consider this dilemma during the naming process? (Was that the whole point?) And how can we know the difference when the word is used in a casual conversation?

Fittingly, as this terminology grows more pliant, so does the universal idea of an “office.” The origin story of coworking spaces may be as a haven for weary freelancers and other lone-wolf workers: a place to mingle, dress down and get their best work done on drastically different projects. But soon, entire companies caught wind of the cool vibes, migrating select groups or whole staffs to the nearest collective.

Source: Andrew Zangre, “The Many Faces of Coworking Spaces,” G2 Crowd

For many years, Washington was known as a “bridge and tunnel” city (sans the tunnels), catering largely to government, political and NGO commuters from the surrounding suburbs.

But the recent influx and staying power of a new generation has dramatically altered the ways, sectors and venues in which we live and work.

As more people call DC their permanent home – according to Census Bureau estimates from December 2016, the population of District residents is at a 40-year high and has increased more than 13 percent since 2010 alone – nearly all aspects of capital city living have shifted. Notably, how and literally where Washingtonians are making their hard-earned dollars. And I mean hard-earned – as of 2015, we have the country’s second longest work week, not counting commute time.

Source: Courtney Sexton, “The Times, They Are A Changing’: How We (Co)Work in the Nation’s Capitol,” OnTap Magazine

For its first New York City space, coworking company Serendipity Labs has today sealed a deal for 34,000 square feet at 28 Liberty Street, Commercial Observer has learned.

…

Three-year-old Serendipity Labs offers workplace memberships that include full- and part-time coworking space, private offices, workstations and team rooms. It has six open facilities across the country (three of which are franchises), including in Rye, N.Y., Chicago and Aventura, Fla., with five coming soon, according to the website. The Rye location was its first.

…

Source: Lauren Elkies Schram, “Coworking Provider Serendipity Labs Launching in NYC With 34K-SF Space at 28 Liberty” Commercial Observer

“It’s all in the name.”

The above is true for rapidly growing coworking brand, Serendipity Labs. With six current locations and plans to open eleven more workspaces by the end of the calendar year, the three-year-old company is showing no signs of slowing down. Their proprietary formula of creating and sustaining “serendipitous connections” between people and physical workspaces is unparalleled.

While their first location in Rye, New York opened in 2013 and since then, Serendipity has by now penetrated markets that span the eastern half of the United States from New York to Texas.

Their approach to scouting and securing locations for their workspaces is unique. “It’s a hub and spoke strategy,” explained Paula Gomprecht, Vice President of Marketing for Serendipity Labs. With urban centers being their hub full of big business, Serendipity can easily extend their reach [or spoke] to target established professionals in the adjacent suburbs.

At their core, Serendipity designed their network to provide an exceptional level of service for all of their members, with flexibility, convenience and professionalism at the forefront of everything they stand for.

Source: Adam Greenwald, “A Rapidly Growing Coworking Brand’s Formula To Creating ‘Serendipitous Connections’,” allwork.space

More Co-Working Sites are Opening in New Jersey to Avoid Commutes into Manhattan

Short-term communal office space favored by tech and startup companies move beyond urban enclaves
…
The rise of the suburban shared-office facility, typically under 15,000 square feet in New Jersey, has been fed by a growing number of independent workers, said co-working operators, real-estate developers and brokers. Many of them are leaving the corporate world to strike out on their own, eliminating a long commute and establishing more of a balance between personal and work life, said the experts added.

Larger companies also are fueling demand, using these facilities as spots to allow valued employees a flexible work option close to home. About half of the customers using coworking provider Serendipity Labs Inc. work for established companies, said Chief Executive John Arenas. Serendipity Labs, which operates a number of facilities around the U.S., opened locations in Ridgewood, N.J., and Stamford, Conn., last year and has franchise sites under development.

“Workplace strategy at companies has become much more sophisticated in the last three to four years,” Mr. Arenas said. “As companies try to retain top talent and support mobility, they have taken a hard look at third-party space providers.”

Source: Keiko Morris, “Co-working Spaces Spread to the Suburbs,” The Wall Street Journal

Today we’d like to introduce you to John Arenas.

John, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.

In 1996, I founded Stratis Business Centers in Westchester County, NY. It was acquired by Regus, the international office suites company, in 2001 and I became the President and GM of Regus Americas. While in that position, I led them through a restructuring and to an 11x share price increase. Next I launched Worktopia, the first global reservation system for real-time booking of meeting rooms and group hotel room-blocks that was used by American Express, Travelocity and several international hotel chains.

Source: “Meet John Arenas of Serendipity Labs Coworking in The Loop” VoyageChicago

When Serendipity Labs Coworking CEO John Arenas began developing shared workplaces in 1992, the model was fairly simple: emulate traditional workplaces and put resources around individuals to operate as though they were in a corporate headquarters.

“Back when I started operating business centers, it was $3 per page to send a fax, and $0.20 per minute for phone services,” Arenas said. ‘We even had typing pool services.”

Needless to say, things have changed. Arenas now oversees a national coworking franchise chain with an expansion plan of over100 locations underway in urban and suburban markets across the United States. It would be safe to call him an industry pioneer.

Source: “Industry Perspective: John Arenas, CEO, Serendipity Labs Coworking” JLL Ambitions

Coworking spaces make it ridiculously easy for entrepreneurs today to find an office space.

So where should you work? If you’re looking for your own space now (whether you’re an entrepreneur, freelancer, telecommuter, or even just need a great place to work for a day), you might want to consider one of these 23 great coworking spaces in the U.S. …

Serendipity Labs
Now in eight locations, Serendipity Labs offers members an upscale, beautiful workplace environment. Memberships include full-time and part-time coworking, as well as dedicated private offices, workstations, and team rooms.

Source: Larry Kim, “23 of the Best Coworking Spaces in the U.S.” Inc. Magazine

If you’ve toyed with the idea of moving your business from your kitchen table or coffee shops to a more formal space, here are some surprising benefits coworking spaces may offer.

A Productivity Boost
Feeling scattered? Unmotivated? A coworking arrangement may be just what you need. “As someone with anxiety and depression, being in a coworking space rather than in somewhat isolation has reinvigorated my sense of purpose and belonging,” says William Bauer, managing director of ROYCE, a handcrafted American accessories brand. He worked from a traditional office but relocated to a coworking space two years ago, and hasn’t looked back.

“I love having a place that both inspires me to be productive and is home to so many interesting self-starters,” says Amy Sutnick Plotch, founder of Sutnick-Plotch Communications who works from Serendipity Labs in Ridgewood New Jersey.

Source: Gerri Detweiler, Contributor, “11 Surprising Benefits of a Coworking Space” The Huffington Post

New York-based Serendipity Labs is bringing its coworking franchise to Columbus, opting for two locations to introduce their concept to the market. Columbus-based Renascent Hospitality will manage the dueling labs located Downtown in the Fifth Third Building at 21 E. State St., and in the Short North at 900 N. High St., the proposed location of a mixed-use development to replace the UDF.

Renascent business partners Trevor Warner and Scott Somerville jumped at what they call two unreplicable locations in the market.

The 14,000 square feet of the former gym boast floor-to-ceiling windows and a prime location next to the Statehouse. The new build of the Short North development at the apex of the neighborhood will offer 22,000 square feet in a four-story building that includes a restaurant tenant and outdoor space on the rooftop.

Working with a hospitality companies like Renascent is indicative of the kind of environment Serendipity Labs looks to create.

“They are running the labs with that kind of service,” Warner says.

The upscale coworking franchise is focused on the hospitality that hoteliers know how to deliver.

“I started seeing my hospitality trade either magazine or blogs about other hotel management groups that were buying the area rights to develop Serendipity Labs locations,” Somerville says.

He saw locations popping up in Nashville, Chicago, and finally, with a group he is familiar with in Dallas. After the third city tipped the scales, he started speaking with other associates about why they were investing in Serendipity Labs. Somerville sees it almost as a natural extension of the services they already provide at hotels. Warner says it’s that aspect that sets Serendipity Labs apart from other coworking spaces.

Source: Susan Post, “Serendipity Labs Coworking Headed for Downtown & Short North,” Metropreneur.com

More “coworking” space is coming to Downtown and the Short North, as demand for flexible office space continues to grow in Columbus and across the country.

National franchise Serendipity Labs has signed deals for space in a new building expected to open in early 2018 in the Short North at 900 N. High St., and for an opening this summer in the Fifth Third building at High and State streets, across from the Statehouse.

Meanwhile, local office developer E.V. Bishoff is preparing to open its Club Level Coworking space at 35 E. Gay St., in the Historic Commerce Building, on May 1.

The coworking idea is a more recent twist on the concept of shared office space that has been around for years.

Source: Marla Rose, “More ‘coworking’ shared office space locations opening in central Ohio” The Columbus Dispatch

A Rye, New York-based chain that provides upscale coworking spaces is expanding into Nashville with a 15,000 square foot location set to open in early August in renovated space at downtown’s iconic L&C Tower.

Dan McEwan, CEO of Memphis-based Maximum Hospitality, is the franchisee owner of the Nashville location of Serendipity Labs Coworking. It’s the first tenant signed for the remodeled 159 Fourth Ave. N. building of the L&C Tower complex, which Los Angeles-based real assets manager CIM Group acquired a year and a half ago.

“As the area continues its unprecedented growth, coworking concepts have changed the way businesses view office space, allowing established companies to extend their real estate footprint, and professional and fast-growing companies a safe, welcoming, hospitality-driven workplace so they may focus on innovation and growth,” said McEwan, who has plans for additional Serendipity Labs Coworking locations in the Nashville market.

Source: Getahn Ward, “Serendipity Labs Coworking space coming to L&C Tower in Nashville,” The Tennessean

The upscale workspace provider is taking advantage of the rapidly growing coworking market.

Rye, N.Y.—Serendipity Labs Coworking just keeps growing and growing. The members-only, upscale workspace provider has recently secured exclusive development agreements with two new franchise partners, paving the way for the opening of 10 new workplaces in Nashville and Denver.

The coworking market is on fire, and it’s not just for startups and freelancers anymore. “There is a massive shift away from conventional leases under 5,000 square feet, and upscale coworking, like Serendipity Labs, that can meet enterprise standards, is winning this demand now,” John Arenas, CEO of Serendipity Labs Coworking, told Commercial Property Executive. “[Commercial real estate services firm] JLL refers to this phenomenon as the evolution of corporate coworking. It’s not about winning startups, it’s about an alternative for established companies with workplace needs for fewer than 30 people in a given city.”

Source: Barbra Murray, “Serendipity Labs Sets Up Shop in Nashville, Denver,” Commercial Property Executive

The latest co-working space to hit the DC market aims to attract an older and more professional tenant base than the existing brands.

NY-based Serendipity Labs launched its sixth location in Bethesda on Jan. 12 and it’s already 50% occupied. While co-working is often associated with 20-somethings in T-shirts and jeans, you’re more likely to see a 35-year-old in a suit and tie entering the new location, at Carr Properties’ 4500 East West Highway.

Source: Jon Banister, “Serendipity Labs Opens First DC-Area Co-Working Space In Bethesda, Plans To Open 4 More,” Bisnow

“Women Digital Nomads is built by our community to help all nomads, especially women, find the best cities to live and work remotely, learn new skills and be inspired by others,” according to the site.

In Connecticut, Serendipity Labs earned the top honor. “Serendipity Labs Stamford is located in the exciting Harbor Point district at 700 Canal Street, just steps from shops and dining. This 13,000sf coworking location includes a worklounge, lab-cafe, private offices, team rooms and event space,” the site writes.

Serendipity Labs, a firm that operates shared workspaces around the country for a range of businesses, opened in 2016.

Source: Lidia Ryan and Paul Schott, “Stamford office named coolest work space in Connecticut,” Stamford Advocate

Coworking is a popular trend, with different types of coworking offices popping up all over the country. To help you find the one that best suits your needs, we asked national network Serendipity Labs to share what hospitality looks like at their coworking spaces.

Hospitality is a warm and welcoming concept that you can feel instantly from a gracious host, upscale hotels, and thoughtful offices. Hospitality can, and should, be the driving force behind coworking brands.

Source: Kelly Jennings, “Coworking and Hospitality are a match,” Quincy CFO

A tour of coworking spaces perfect for the creative, the working parent, and the c-suite crowd.

In the age of Airbnb and Uber, people are sharing their homes, their cars, and now they’re sharing workspaces. Chicago has seen a boom in “coworking spaces” due to the rapidly growing rate of remote workers, creative professionals, startups, and people who can work from anyplace with a solid WiFi signal.

Source: Nicole Vasquez, “Coworking Around Chicago: An Inside Look at 2112, Take a Break, and Serendipity Labs,” ChicagoInno

The chain provides upscale coworking spaces for “more established professionals.”

With the official opening of its Bethesda location this week, Serendipity Labs is joining the (robust and seemingly always growing) D.C.-area coworking scene.

Serendipity Labs is a national chain, headquartered in Rye, N.Y. It provides, as CEO John Arenas put it, “upscale membership-based work spaces.” The 19,000-square-foot Bethesda location is its sixth space, but Arenas told Technical.ly the company has around 100 more committed to development. If that seems like tremendous, accelerated growth for a company founded in 2013, you’re right. But it’s all part of Serendipity’s strategy.

Source: Tajha Chappellet-Lanier, “A new coworking option, Serendipity Labs, comes to the DC area,” Technical.ly

Shared work spaces are popping up far away from urban cores.

When Anju Kurian works, she fires up her computer at Serendipity Labs, a co-working space in Rye, a Westchester County suburb of New York City. “Work is everywhere,” says Kurian, the co-founder of Vermilion Talent, a business that helps women reenter the workforce after leaving corporate life to raise their children.

For many, the word “co-working” still conjures up images of skinny-jeans-clad, cold-press-swilling tech types in a downtown warehouse. But the practice has grown by leaps and bounds in a short period of time. According to a study by the magazine Deskmag, the number of co-working spaces worldwide is expected to increase by 22 percent in 2017. And as it has grown, co-working has spread to the suburbs.

Source: Pooja Makhijani, “Why Coworking is Moving to the Suburbs,” Citylab.com

Just in case you did miss them, here’s a 5 minute wrap-up of flexible workspace highlights in 2016.

5. WeWork scored a Century… and discovered Serendipity Labs snapping at their heels
With WeWork continuing to expand without pause (although not without its challenges), the workspace company opened the doors to its 100th location in November of this year. But wait… WeWork has a challenger in the form of Serendipity Labs. Founded in 2013 in New York, the workspace operator is harnessing the power of franchising to expand its reach — and currently has over 100 locations in development.

Source: Jo Disney, “16 Unmissable Moments from the Flexible Workspace Industry in 2016,” AllWork.Space

The latest coworking survey suggests that a significant portion of growth will come from existing operators as 67% of them plan to expand their brand in some way or another in 2017. And this is only for coworking operators, and we can’t leave out of the equation business centers and executive suite providers.

Another important fact to consider is that industry experts believe consolidation is likely to happen on a larger scale than in previous years. With this in mind, it is likely that some workspace operators will grow more than others, depending on their aggressiveness and their growth strategy.

So, who will grow the most in 2017?

Serendipity Labs
In a recent interview with Allwork, Paula Gomprecht, Senior Director of Marketing for Serendipity Labs, mentioned that starting 2017, the workspace hospitality brand will have over 100 locations in pipeline development.
Their chosen path for growth, that of franchising their locations, allows Serendipity Labs to grow faster than other workspace operators, while lessening the potential amount of risk associated with fast-paced growth and capital investment.

Source: Cecilia Amador, “Flexible Workspace Operators Set To Grow the Most in 2017,” AllWork.Space

Buying and wasting resources might one day be eclipsed by professional give and take between businesses. Consumers, of course, have already embraced the sharing economy by backing platforms like Uber, Streetbank and Airbnb, where private individuals share personal resources with unknown takers. Perhaps peer-to peer platforms for entrepreneurs and start-ups are poised to launch a similar sharing economy for the business world.

Shared consumption: A key trend defining 2016?

The continued growth of the sharing economy stands out as a 2016 trend for Fueled co-founder, Ryan D Matzner, while founder and CEO of the co-working-network Serendipity Labs, John Arenas, explains how co-working reflects the rising sharing and circular economy model. For him, rather than propagating a wasteful linear model of consumption, sharing head office real estate saves travel time and offers additional benefits.

Source: Kelly Pipes, “Will there be anything we don’t share in 2017?”, Virgin.com

How This Workspace Provider Defied The Traditional Expansion Model…And Won

Up next on our Industry Game-Changers series is Serendipity Labs, one of the first coworking operators to use the franchise model to power its expansion efforts.

Serendipity Labs was founded in 2013 by John Arenas. Since opening its first location in NYC, the brand has focused on the hospitality aspect of flexible workspaces.

Paula Gomprecht, Senior Director of Marketing for Serendipity Labs, says that the brand identifies itself as being in the hospitality industry. “We look at the workspaces as a service industry as a hospitality vertical. Hospitality is our main focus, it’s in our DNA.”

Source: Cecilia Amador, “Serendipity Labs Aims To Add 100+ Locations in 2017” AllWork.Space

Co-working spaces are all the rage these days and a Columbus hotel company is getting in on the action.

Renascent Hospitality, a hotel manager and developer, has become a franchisee of Rye, New York-based Serendipity Labs Coworking.

“Columbus has seen tremendous growth over the last few years, with good reason. Companies see the enormous potential in everything from the central location, to the talent pool and resources available,” John Arenas, CEO of Serendipity Labs, said in a release. “As about 45 percent of our members are employees of established companies who have the monthly membership paid by their organization, 20 percent startups and 35 percent independent professionals, we think Serendipity Labs is the perfect fit for Columbus’ fast-moving business environment.”

Source: Laura Newpoff, “Columbus hospitality company getting in on the co-working boom, opening 4 local labs,” Columbus Business First

NEW YORK – The business model behind the co-working craze is falling out of favor: WeWork rivals pursue office-sharing setups that are more like hotel chains.

… Serendipity Labs, thinks franchises are the key to fast growth. Under its model, franchisees pay a fee to be part of the Serendipity family, then build locations in the mold espoused by the company…

The franchisees, who can lease space themselves or use buildings they own, pay for much of the cost of construction, allowing Serendipity (Labs) the ability to grow quickly without raising hundreds of millions of dollars itself …

Many of the franchisees to sign up thus far come from a different corner of the real-estate world: the hotel sector, where franchising is commonplace.

“There were so many commonalities,” said Scott Somerville, a hotel developer and operator who is president of Renascent Hospitality. He has signed on to set up four or five Serendipity locations in the Columbus, Ohio, area. “It’s a hotel without the guest rooms.”

Click here for full article.

Eliot Brown, “New Competition for ‘Co-Working’ Model,” The Wall Street Journal

STAMFORD — The first floor of the brick building at 700 Canal St. in the city’s South End looks like it could house a financial-services firm or an energy company or a design group. In fact, it serves all three types of organizations — and many more.

Serendipity Labs, a firm that operates shared workspaces around the country for a range of businesses, opened last week its 13,000-square-foot hub on Canal Street.

Source: Paul Schott, “Serendipity Labs offers latest shared work space in Stamford” Stamford Advocate

A new co-working center has opened in Stamford to tap into the market for flexible, short-term office space arrangements.

Rye, New York-based Serendipity Labs launched its 13,000-square-foot location at 700 Canal St. last week.

Serendipity previously opened locations in Rye; Chicago, Illinois; and Ridgewood, New Jersey. It selected the Stamford site because of the city’s expanding tech scene and the proximity to shops, dining and the MetroNorth, director of sales Kate Kelleher said.

Source: Steve Adams, “Stamford Gets New Co-Working Center,” The Commercial Record

Serendipity Labs opened a co-working space in Aventura Corporate Center.

The Rye, New York-based company offers shared office space and private office suites on flexible schedules. Its “unlimited access” plans start at $399 per month. This is the company’s first location to open in South Florida, and another one is coming to the Centro building in downtown Miami in October.

Source: Brian Bandell, “Co-working space opens in Class A office building,” South Florida Business Journal

A New York-based shared office firm is making a big push into North Texas with plans to open nine co-working facilities.

Serendipity Labs Co-Working is one of a handful of companies creating shared workspace operations in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Serendipity has formed a franchise agreement with an affiliate of Texas-based Worth Hotels to be the development partner for the D-FW locations.

The companies hope to have their first D-FW space up and running by early next year.

Source: Steve Brown, “New York-based shared office firm Serendipity Labs plans multiple D-FW co-working locations,” The Dallas Morning News

A New York-based co-working company that develops shared office space for the suit-and-tie set – or at least the jacket-and-khaki set – has struck a deal with a local real estate investment firm to bring the concept to Houston.

Serendipity Labs Coworking, a 3-year-old company aiming to upgrade co-working’s 20-something hipster image, will open in downtown’s Esperson office development.

Houston-based Cameron Management, Esperson’s owner, signed an exclusive franchise agreement with Serendipity for the Houston area, where it hopes to build 10 co-working sites.

Source: Nancy Sarnoff, “Grown-up co-working space to land downtown,” Houston Chronicle

The Serendipity Labs co-working facility coming to downtown Bethesda is targeting a July opening, according to company CEO John Arenas.

Arenas, who grew up in Bethesda, said bringing the New York-based company to the 4500 East West Highway office building “is like coming home,” and Serendipity Labs is exploring other Washington, D.C.-area locations.
“We’re not just dipping a toe into the D.C. metro market,” Arenas said in an interview earlier this month. Serendipity Labs is undergoing a national expansion with more than 80 locations planned. The 19,000-square-foot space in Bethesda will be the company’s eighth.

Source: Aaron Kraut, “Serendipity Labs Targeting July Opening in Downtown Bethesda,” Bethesda Magazine

At 700 Canal St. in Stamford’s South End, Serendipity magazine publishes quarterly issues focused on lifestyle topics germane to Fairfield County and Westchester County, N.Y. In fitting out a new “lifestyle” option of sorts for businesspeople on the building’s ground floor, John Arenas says it is only happenstance that his company shares the magazine’s name — but promises it will be a happy accident for Stamford, and soon other locations throughout Fairfield County.

Source: Alexander Soule, “Coworking options to swell with Serendipity Labs in Stamford — and beyond,” Stamford Advocate

Mr. Doug Denman, President of Worth Hotels an IHG and Marriott franchisee, has joined the Board of Directors of Serendipity Labs Coworking. Serendipity Labs was founded by established hospitality industry leader, John Arenas, creator of Worktopia.

Serendipity Labs is a different kind of coworking space that incorporates the upscale hospitality industry best practices to meet current and future workforce expectations.

Source: Susie Smith, “Doug Denman, Joins Board of Directors of Serendipity Labs Coworking,” Hospitality Daily

Move over startups. Big business is starting to fill desks at trendy shared offices.

WeWork, the shared-office company valued at $15 billion, has cultivated a chic vibe to attract the freelancers and startup workers that helped launch the co-working movement. That means hip interior design (some offices have wallpaper created by the Beastie Boys’ Mike D.) and free micro-roasted coffee and craft beer (the company gave out 90,000 glasses during a single month last year).

Source: Patrick Clark, “Co-Working Spaces are Going Corporate,” BloombergBusiness

A New York-based co-working brand is coming to downtown Bethesda’s newest office building.

Serendipity Labs Coworking announced Monday that it has signed a lease with building owner Carr Properties for 19,000 square feet of the 4500 East West Highway building.

The building, which Carr finished in 2014, is a few blocks east of the Bethesda Metro station. Serendipity Labs will join small business loan company Rapid Advance and education company Teaching Strategies LLC as tenants in the building.

Source: Aaron Kraut, “Co-working Space Coming to Bethesda’s 4500 East West Highway Building,” Bethesda Magazine

A franchisee of co-working space provider Serendipity Labs has leased a new location in Aventura.

NAI Miami’s Jeremy S. Larkin, Joe Gallaher and John Erixon represented ACC/GP Development, the owner of Aventura Corporate Center at 20801-20803 Biscayne Boulevard in the lease with a joint venture between Chicago-based Centrum Partners and New Jersey-based The Pinnacle Cos. They’re opening a franchise of Serendipity Labs in the 11,712-square-foot space.

Source: Brian Bandell, “Serendipity Labs Coworking Space Comes to Aventura,” South Florida Business Journal

John Arenas of Serendipity Labs has successfully built several brands – including Stratis Business Centers – with differing models in the serviced workspace industry. We interviewed John to learn how Serendipity Labs is progressing.

When and how did you start at Serendipity Labs?

I was fortunate to be able to bring together a veteran team of workplace and hospitality executives and key strategic partners in 2012. We set out to create a world-class brand of coworkers to meet the needs of companies of all sizes across all industry categories and stages of development, not just tech startups and creative class.

Source: Member Interview with John Arenas of Serendipity Labs , Global Workspace Association

CEO of Serendipity Labs Coworking, John Arenas talks with Greg MacKinnon, PREA’s Director of Research, about the changes in the shared workplace model Serendipity Labs is achieving.

What sort of workplace model have you developed with Serendipity Labs, and how does that compare to other firms in the Coworking industry?

We have created a coworking brand that delivers a workplace membership experience to satisfy mobile professional workers and project teams across all industry categories and company sizes. This means serving a broader market and larger customer base compared with coworking companies that focus solely on technology start-ups and young creative class workers. Knowledge workers are effectively free agents now, even corporate employees, so they also need a platform to support their own personal work styles. These workers have become sophisticated consumers, choosing where, when, and how they work.

Source: Greg MacKinnon, One-On-One with John Arenas, PREA Industry News

Just three months after opening a 15,000-square-foot co-working and conference center on the first floor of One South Wacker in Chicago, Serendipity Labs has gone forward with its plan to expand onto the tower’s second floor where it has leased an additional 15,000-square-feet. More than 1,000 members signed up since last fall, and the new space, which opened last Friday, offers access to private offices, dedicated workstations and more co-working space.

Source: Brian J. Rogal, “Serendipity Labs Takes Coworking National,” GlobeSt.com

Executive of the Month: Arenas, CEO of Serendipity Labs: Centered on improving the quality of members’ lives; motivation to succeed: Joy of building organizations that help people reach their potential

The NYREJ recently sat down with John Arenas, CEO of Serendipity Labs, a national coworking brand, for a question and answer session. Arenas served as president and general manager of Regus Americas, and was named one of the 25 Most Influential Executives in Business Travel while CEO of Worktopia.
Source: https://nyrej.com/80281 New York Real Estate Journal