By Gabriel Frank
May 1, 2024
Developers are accommodating residents’ evolving spatial needs.
While fully remote work has declined from its pandemic high, millions of Americans are still working where they live and vice-versa. So, how does this affect the strategies and designs for new product?
Today, it’s an open secret that all new multifamily developments incorporate, in some form or another, a remote work-focused arrangement. In fact, some developers in space-starved markets where it is not possible to build large common areas have gone as far as including dedicated glass-paneled office spaces within units themselves.
The coworking lounge at Lyra, a residential tower located near Hudson Yards. The coworking area, which resembles a lounge or hotel lobby, gives residents both flexible seating and work options, giving them the same degree of functionality as they move throughout the property. Image courtesy of MdeAS
While it may not be necessary to go that far, designing around work from home has gone from an amenity to an expectation.
In the second quarter of 2020, 70 percent of employees were working remotely. Those days are not likely to return, but Statista reports that, as of the fourth quarter of 2022, 53 percent of workers are in some type of hybrid setting. And a recent survey from Upwork found that up to 36 million of Americans could be working remotely by 2025.
For many developers, accommodating work from home within a unit is more of an idea than a physical space. Providing renters with a canvas to create their ideal living experience is the most effective and meaningful strategy, observed Shane Robinson, senior vice president at Cityview, a Los Angeles based developer of lifestyle properties. “The word that keeps coming to our mind is flexibility,” Robinson told Multi-Housing News.
A CV Works coworking space at Belle on Bev, a lifestyle community located in Los Angeles Filipinotown neighborhood. The CV Works space includes all the trappings of a traditional office space, with WiFi, A/V projectors and private conference rooms.
This may mean designing units with open floor plans, the sizes of which can change based on the market the community is being built in. “By having open floor plans, that allows tenants to bring in their own furniture and design it the way they would like,” Robinson said.
Trademark Property Company, a mixed-use and retail property developer, supports work from home by offering renters a “1G or 1K” unit type, which contains one and a half bedrooms. “It’s a little bit longer of a unit, but it’s great for a home office or for a nursery if someone elects to do that,” noted Trademark Partner Chad Colley.
As developers contemplate office-to-multifamily conversions in markets, there may be opportunities to create larger, multifunctional units and to design dedicated studies inside apartments.
“If you are working with some of these older buildings, there are these extra pockets of space that give you the opportunity to incorporate a study type space or something else that could be used to work from home,” explained Michael Hensley, a principal at Pickard Chilton.
Private office spaces inside The Jasper, an opportunity-zoned project located in Los Angeles’ University Park East neighborhood. Despite its close proximity to Downtown Los Angeles, the community’s amenity suite includes a business center with enclosed workstations. Image courtesy of Cityview
Borrowing from… the office?
Within both the units and amenity spaces, developers are looking to trends in the office sector for inspiration.
As such, they’re seeking to foster collaboration and interaction by building out hospitality-inspired spaces. The trend is even reflected in the nomenclature. “Coworking lounge” is preferred to “business center.”
For some developers, this may mean offering lounges with strong Wi-Fi connectivity with an adjacent pantry or coffee bar. “(They’re) not just extra rooms at the end of the hallway, but very well programmed spaces that have communal zones and pantries,” explained Jeff Ellerbrock, a senior director at architecture firm MdeAS.
WeWork-like coworking areas with open floor plans, lots of natural light, and diverse seating options are a tried-and-true success story. Colley uses that as a model when creating what he calls “collaboration areas” or “Starbucks 2.0.”
Seating areas at the coworking lounge within Mosby Avalon Park, a single-family, build-to-rent community located in Wesley Chapel, Fla., a suburb of Tampa. Located further away from the Downtown Tampa than many residents would care to commute to every day, the community’s coworking lounges include ample areas for collaboration, as well as private, secluded work. Image courtesy of Middleburg Communities
“Most of the people that work from home and go down to an amenity area (do so) because it’s a collaboration area—one where they want to be around people,” explained Colley whose firm offers coffee on tap.
Robinson uses the same flexibility in the spaces to govern how they are configured, something demonstrated in Cityview’s CV Works line of coworking amenities. “When you walk into a coffee shop, and you see 25 people there with their laptops, there’s an energy where people still really appreciate the connectivity of other people, but then have the flexibility of being private,” Robinson said.
Developers and the architects they work with also make sure to include spaces dedicated to private conferencing, given the importance of Zoom and Teams calls. These range from small enclosed workstations to boardroom style conference centers. “To me, a business center is kind of like a library where (you) can go and be quiet, and stay in your own lane,” Colley said.
Stay practical, people
The key theme for work-from-home-minded developments is versatility. “It really is a mix of some open space, and some larger office space for team meetings, where you also need to have those personal calls in a smaller enclosure that resembles a phone booth,” Agbozo explained.
At the same time, many renters may elect to not do any work inside their units or a business center at all—just like many office workers do not want to be relegated to a cubicle all day. As a result, property-wide internet access and outlets in every communal space, from the lobby to the pool deck, is a priority for Trademark.
“What is interesting is that outside of programming within your units, we also see that even though renters are working from home, they also want to be away from it,” noted Selim Tay-Agbozo, Middleburg’s president of development. “They want to be able to leave their unit and be able to access space on the property to work from.”
A CV Works coworking space at Belle on Bev, a lifestyle community located in Los Angeles’ Filipinotown neighborhood. The CV Works space includes all the trappings of a traditional office space, with WiFi, A/V projectors and private conference rooms.
Matters of space and location
However, it may not always be necessary or even feasible to add the best furnished amenities or the largest units possible, especially given where construction costs are. A lot depends on a community’s location, renter demographics and asset class. Trademark, for instance, offers more 1K units and coworking amenities more in communities located outside of the central business district. The reason for that, according to Colley, is that if employees are further away from the office, they may prefer to spend less time there, and vice versa.
Location can actually shape the design and configurations of the coworking spaces themselves. Cityview, for instance, changes its work from home features based on who the largest employer is in a given area.
“If we’re in Burbank, maybe a lot of our amenities may be designed around animation or entertainments, and if we’re in a tech center then we may be but then more tech heavy,” Robinson detailed. “It’s about bringing the broader community into the design of the building itself.”
Read more: https://www.multihousingnews.com/how-work-from-home-influences-multifamily-design/
