NC coworking companies, once hampered by the pandemic, now benefit from its effects

After initially seeing a drop in users during the first months of the coronavirus pandemic, some of the Triangle’s coworking communities are once again experiencing growth.

The pandemic, in fact, now seems to be benefiting these communities, which offer flexible space and are home to many of the region’s youngest startups.

Brian Fuhs, director of business development at the Raleigh coworking company Loading Dock, said his company is seeing a surge in interest from workers who now have greater flexibility in where they do their work. While many have chosen to work from home, some still want to a place to gather in-person a few days a week, he said.

“Companies want to recognize the life balance of working-from-home work,” Fuhs said. “But then they also want to have a place to gather, like a Loading Dock. We’ve seen a big uptake in meeting space rental and conference room utilization over the last month and a half.”

The Loading Dock is betting that momentum continues as it prepares to open two new locations, giving it four across Wake County.

Its latest locations — one on Beryl Road near N.C. State University and another in downtown Wake Forest — will open in the coming weeks.

Ahead of its opening on Oct. 28, the Beryl Road location, which includes flexible warehouse space as well, already has 50% of its dedicated offices rented out, Fuhs said.

Loading Dock’s new Beryl Road location in West Raleigh.
Loading Dock’s new Beryl Road location in West Raleigh.

The Loading Dock had planned these expansions before the pandemic, but nearly two years later, they appear to be opening at a fortuitous time, Fuhs said.

“The timing, I feel like it’s working in our favor,” he said. “I think the pandemic is ultimately an accelerator for the way our business helps support other businesses.”

Fuhs said there could be even more opportunities for coworking in the Triangle’s growing suburbs, like its new space in Wake Forest. “People have been working remote, and haven’t been doing that drive from Wake Forest to North Raleigh, to RTP, to Durham,” he said. “It will be difficult to get back into that rhythm, so I think the timing of opening Wake Forest is really ideal.”

Hunter Moore, the CEO of Plasma Games, a company that makes educational video games, said his employees simply no longer want to come to the office every day because of the pandemic. Rather than work together in the same space every day, employees typically come together once a week now.

Using a coworking company, he said, has been a good option for his team because they live all over the Triangle. Some team members might choose to gather at one Loading Dock location one day, because it is closer to their homes, while a different team might choose an entirely different Loading Dock location.

“The value is we do not gather every day and the flex passes are nice so I do not have to pay a much larger monthly rent for space I would only use one day per week,” Moore said in an email. “[I]t allows for satellite office spaces that are closer to different teams.”

Many coworking offices sat empty during the earlier stages of the pandemic.
Many coworking offices sat empty during the earlier stages of the pandemic.

Remote workers moving to the Triangle

Raleigh Founded, which operates four coworking locations across Raleigh, said last week it would partner with the Wake Forest School of Medicine to create a coworking hub in downtown Winston-Salem’s new Innovation Quarter. The new space, dubbed Sparq, is billed as providing space for Winston-Salem startups.

Jes Porta, who runs the Raleigh Founded coworking community, said it’s just the latest sign of growth for coworking following the pandemic. During the first nine months of the pandemic, she said, Raleigh Founded and others saw a drop in membership.

But since then people have returned to their shared offices, at least partly, after people began to get vaccinated and had a better understanding of the risks surrounding COVID-19.

The numbers have grown so steadily, in fact, that Raleigh Founded now has more coworking members than it did before the pandemic in 2019.

Porta believes that growth can be attributed to a rise of independent coworkers and larger teams using smaller spaces.

“A lot of small- to medium-sized companies are allowing their employees to work from home and when people can work from home, they often eventually need a landing spot outside of their home to get work done and connect with others,” Porta said. “Some companies even offer stipends for their employees to find a coworking or shared space option.”

Many of these independent coworkers, Porta said, have taken full-time remote jobs and moved to the area from New York, San Francisco or Boston.

Other companies, she said, have simply decided to downsize their square footage because employees are working partially at home. “They now only really need a common space for half of their employees to work or meet at any given time,” she said.

One company that has taken advantage of that trend is fast-growing software startup Levitate.

The company, which before the pandemic had around 40 employees, now employs more than 100. It originally planned to leave Raleigh Founded’s location in Gateway Plaza, but has decided to stay, letting employees rotate in person and remote on different days of the week.

Before COVID-19, “the whole model was going into the office and then going home,” Levitate CEO Jesse Lipson told The News & Observer earlier this year. “Now, I think what we may see is when you are in meetings and at your laptop chugging away, maybe it’s not as important to be in the office. You wouldn’t be chatting with people anyway because you are getting through five meetings with customers.”

Porta said a decision like Levitate’s turns out to be a win for both parties.

“It’s good for them because they can keep their space costs low and good for us to keep them as a part of our space as they grow,” she said.

This story was produced with financial support from a coalition of partners led by Innovate Raleigh as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work. Learn more; go to bit.ly/newsinnovate