IWG opens two new co-working spaces in S’pore amid flexi-workspace growth
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The meeting room at the HQ Liang Seah workspace. IWG, formerly known as Regus, opened the HQ co-working office on Oct 1, which currently takes up about 2,000 sq ft of space in the shophouse building.
PHOTO: IWG SINGAPORE
SINGAPORE – Flexible workspaces are in hot demand, and International Workplace Group (IWG) has brought in two new co-working brands to ride the trend.
IWG, formerly known as Regus, opened the HQ co-working office at 1 Liang Seah Street on Oct 1, taking up about 2,000 sq ft of space in the shophouse building. It will eventually take up to 6,770 sq ft in total.
The Switzerland-based IWG also set up OpenOffice at Fortune Centre on Sept 1. The 640 sq ft office sits on level 16 of Fortune Centre.
The OpenOffice brand was originally from Japan, while the HQ brand was from the United States. Both brands are now owned and operated by IWG.
These two new flexible workspaces signal the expansion of IWG in Singapore. They bring the total number of flexible workspace brands under IWG in the city to six, as well as 25 co-working spaces. The four other brands are Regus, Signature, Spaces and No.18, with various locations in the Central Business District, Marina Bay area and Changi Business Park.
IWG first opened in Singapore in 1999 under the brand Regus in the CBD and occupied a combined 86,000 sq ft of office space. About 65% of its clients in Singapore are multinational companies, with the remainder being small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Most of the clients in IWG’s flexible working spaces here are in the technology, artificial intelligence or finance sectors.
A monthly subscription with IWG ranges from about $1,600 to $7,000, depending on the size and configuration of the office.
Occupancy rates for IWG’s office spaces in Singapore are approaching 80%, said Vijayakumar Tangarasan, IWG’s country head for Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei. As office space availability in the CBD is quite tight, he said, it has pushed the company to look at “almost the entire Singapore” for future flexible workspaces.
AI and technology firms have driven up demand for limited Grade A office space, leading the overall CBD office vacancy to fall to 5.9%, the lowest in 10 quarters, said global commercial real estate services and investment management company JLL.
Tangarasan said IWG intends to open more flexible working offices outside the CBD as well, such as in Paya Lebar, with the aim of growing its spaces between 10% and 20% year on year.
There has been an increase in third-party flexible workspace office space islandwide in terms of square feet, from 2.1 million sq ft in 2017, to 4.6 million sq ft as at September, according to data from JLL Research. The data includes flexible workspaces that are operated by co-working operators and are not managed by the landlord, and includes both occupied and vacant spaces.
Another reason behind the demand in flexible workspaces is that “nobody wants to spend huge money in a very uncertain environment”, said Tangarasan. “They don’t want to use capital expenditure to put in money. They want something that they can move their head office or regional office into immediately, and not for a long period of time.”
A mix of local and international companies also operate co-working spaces in Singapore, such as JustCo, The Work Project, The Great Room by Industrious, The Hive, The Executive Centre and Arcc Spaces. Home-grown company JustCo announced in July that it was taking up five levels of co-working and retail spaces, and another five levels of co-living apartments at Orchard Point.