Wholetailer & Architect · San Francisco, CA · Member since 2015 · 544 posts · 298 votes
I'm not affiliated with this project in any way but as an architect who may want space to start up an architect/development company this has appeal in lowering startup costs. In the San Francisco Bay Area co-working space is getting very popular and I'm wondering if any BPers have invested in properties like this before? Are you getting better returns than a traditional tenant?
It is almost funded which sounds like will go towards furniture and equipment and the investors will purchase the building? They seem to have investors but there may be more opporitunities.
Investor · Irvine, CA · Member since 2015 · 373 posts · 205 votes
10y
I've never owned a co-occ building, but I've rented office space in two.
One of the early trend setters in this category was Scott Blum founder and CEO of buy.com He created and co-occ space for primarily tech companies next door to his buy.com office in Aliso Viejo, CA. The company was then enfrastructure and they leased the building from its institutional ownership on a longer term lease basis (if memory serves correct it was a 10 year lease with several five year options to renew.
They created awesome space with many really cool features such as common commissary, an in building bar (with Thursday night free domestic beers) and other typically common executive suite amenities.
I first leased space in the Aliso Viejo building for my real estate development company in 2002 during the tech industry implosion at the time. Great space at super cheap office rents. They essentially were pricing space at below cost recovery to stop the bleeding.
This model must have worked since the reformatted company "Tech Space" has locations thought the country. I leased space at their Costa Mesa, CA location when it first opened three years ago.