Coworking network WeWork is negotiating to lease more than 50,000 sq. m in Moscow business centers / WeWork

The WeWork coworking network is negotiating to lease more than 50,000 square meters in Moscow business centers. Two of the company's partners and three consultants who have worked with it told Vedomosti about this. It may open its largest office of 25,000 square meters in the Neva Towers business center in Moscow City, Vedomosti's sources said in May. Now WeWork is negotiating approximately the same areas in at least three more offices. Among them are 10,000 square meters in the Mercury Tower (owned by Igor Kesaev's Mercury Group), 8,300 square meters in the Krasnoprudny multifunctional complex (OOO Arielt, which is associated with the developer Sezar Group), and about 4,000 square meters in the Moscow-based ... m in the Romanov Dvor business center (Avica Ruben Vardanyan). Lease agreements have not yet been signed; negotiations on Krasnoprudny are in the most advanced stage, Vedomosti's sources specify.

Representatives of WeWork and Sezar Group declined to comment. Mercury Tower General Manager Aslan Ktsoev says his company is in talks with several coworking spaces, including WeWork. Romanov Dvor expert council member Veronika Zonabend said the company will only announce any deals after the contracts are signed.

WeWork was founded by Americans Adam Neumann and Miguel McKelvey in 2010. Its portfolio currently includes 833 sites in 125 cities around the world. In Russia, the company announced the signing of leases for four properties totaling 17,800 sq. m, but not all sites are operational.

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Real Estate / Commercial Real Estate

If WeWork comes to an agreement with the owners of other offices, its portfolio in Russia will grow to 65,000 sq. m and it will become the largest coworking operator in the country, estimate ILM Managing Partner Andrey Lukashev and Director of the Office Real Estate Department at Accent Capital Vladimir Rybakov. Currently, according to CBRE, WeWork is the fourth largest flexible office network in the country: in Moscow, it has coworking spaces on 9,100 sq. m. The leader is Regus with coworking spaces on 34,000 sq. m. 2nd and 3rd places are Workki and SOK (13,900 and 13,600 sq. m, respectively). SOK, which promised to increase its portfolio to 100,000 sq. m by 2022, could become a serious competitor to WeWork.

Regus Managing Director in Russia Irina Baeva does not see any competition from other networks yet: demand for flexible offices is growing so fast that there is no point in talking about competition. A representative of SOK declined to comment.

There are no prerequisites for a decrease in demand in 2020, says Tatyana Sharaeva from CBRE. In Moscow, only 1% of offices are occupied by coworkings, while in Amsterdam - 7%, in London - 6%, notes Rybakov. Lukashev predicts that in four years the number of coworkings will increase sevenfold. There are currently more than 100 such projects in Moscow.

WeWork could become the largest coworking network in Russia