Serendipity Labs Coworking to Enter 6 New Markets

Serendipity Labs location in downtown Los Angeles. Image courtesy of Yale Gurney

Reflecting the increased demand for flexible office workspaces, Serendipity Labs Coworking is continuing its expansion plans by entering six new markets and adding more than 130,000 square feet to its U.S. company network this year.

Serendipity Labs, which has grown to more than 40 locations by licensing its upscale flexible workplace brand and entering into management agreements with Class A asset owners, will have new locations in McKinney, Texas; Houston; Memphis, Tenn.; Dublin, Calif.; Marlton, N.J.; and Clayton, Mo., opening between the second and fourth quarters of 2020.

The company is also opening two locations this month in Wisconsin and Connecticut that it will also operate. Serendipity Labs is taking 34,000 square feet in the residential component of The Mayflower Collection in Wauwatosa, Wis., location. Owned by developer HSA Commercial Real Estate, the suburban Milwaukee property features a mix of restaurants, retail, entertainment venues and apartments. In Westport, Conn., a New York City suburb, the company is taking 23,000 square feet at 55 W. Boston Post Road in a building owned by Homeclear Serendipity Westport LLC.

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Four of the locations rolling out this year will be ready by the second quarter. In McKinney, Serendipity Labs will operate a 27,000-square-foot space at the HUB 121 Office Park owned by McKinney Office Partners at Craig Ranch. The suburban Dallas location will be part of a live/work/play mixed-use development at NWC SH 121 & Alma Drive. The 20,000-square-foot suburban Memphis location will be in a building owned by Poplar Ventures and located at 6584 Poplar Ave. in East Memphis near I-240.

The 18,000-square-foot Dublin-East Bay Lab in Dublin will open at 6200 Village Parkway and will be operated by Serendipity Labs. Dublin Technology Center LLC is the owner of the East Bay property at the intersection of Interstates 680 and 580. The 16,700-square-foot Clayton Lab at 8112 Maryland Ave. in the St. Louis suburb of Clayton will be opened by Serendipity Labs on behalf of multi-location Serendipity Labs licensee RETKO Group. It will be the second Lab for RETKO, which recently announced an Overland, Kan., location that will open in the first quarter and be operated by Serendipity Labs.

The 23,000-square-foot Marlton Lab at 50 Lake Center Executive Park in the Philadelphia suburbs will be owned by Twenty Lake Holdings and operated by Serendipity Labs when it opens in the third quarter. In the fourth quarter, a 28,331-square-foot location will be opened on the 20^th floor of the iconic Marathon Oil Tower at 5555 San Felipe St. in Houston’s Galleria submarket. Cameron Coworking, a division of Cameron Management, is the multi-location Serendipity Labs area development partner for the Houston market. Serendipity Labs will own and operate the site.

Coworking’s Growing Popularity

With more than 100 locations open and under development in the U.S. and U.K., Serendipity Labs continues to attract interest—and more than $100 million—from institutional investors as well as development partners and asset owners. While many of the company’s locations are in urban areas, Serendipity Labs also sees opportunities in suburban and secondary markets where it can often aggregate higher-quality credit occupiers than traditional landlords.

Avison Young noted in its global 2020 Forecast that the flexible office sector will be one of the hottest growth areas this year for commercial real estate. While flexible offerings currently represent about 5 percent of the office space in most major markets, Avison Young expects that to grow to between 15 percent and 30 percent within 10 years as businesses of all kinds make the leap into flex space to attract talent, remain nimble and react to changes in the economy.

A CBRE report noted flex space could represent 13 percent of the total U.S. office space, or nearly 600 million square feet by 2030. CBRE included Serendipity Labs among the four fastest-growing flex operators that it highlighted in the report.