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Flex space provider Convene shuts down Chicago office amid New York layoffs

Company said it expanded too quickly during post-pandemic recovery

Convene CEO Ryan Simonetti and the Citadel Center at 131 South Dearborn Street (Convene, Google Maps)
Convene CEO Ryan Simonetti and the Citadel Center at 131 South Dearborn Street (Convene, Google Maps)

A flexible office and event space company has laid off more than 50 workers and closed its Chicago office.

Convene let go of 54 New York City employees and permanently closed its 50,000-square-foot office in Chicago’s Citadel Center at 131 South Dearborn Street, BisNow reported. While the company closed its Chicago location, the employees laid off were assigned to Convene’s offices in New York.

The layoffs and office closure come amid a reassessment of Convene’s organization structure, the company’s co-founder and CEO Ryan Simonetti said in a LinkedIn post. “Unfortunately, this meant making the incredibly tough decision to say goodbye to a number of Convene team members this week,” he wrote.

The move to shed space came as the company expanded too quickly in its attempt to come back from the pandemic, Simonetti said. In March 2020, it temporarily shuttered all of its offices and laid off more than 400 people.

Simonetti said the company made a mistake by spending as much as it did on research and development in some areas of the business coming out of the pandemic and should have ramped up more slowly.

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Convene had more than 500 employees stationed across 23 locations in New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Boston and Chicago, though layoff notices were only made in New York. The firm also has a London office.

It was founded in 2009, first offering on-demand work events services, and then evolving into providing flexible offices. It has received more than $260M in private investment, much of it from major landlords including some of its own, such as Brookfield, RXR Realty, BlackRock and Hudson’s Bay Co., the outlet reported.

The potentially good news for Convene is that a CoreNet Global survey found most real estate professionals expect more than a fifth of current office leases will move toward flex spaces in the next five years.

The coworking industry is also evolving, folding in use of residential assets in addition to the traditional downtown office buildings. In Uptown, co-working space provider WeWork is partnering with a developer to include flex office space in its latest residential project, mirroring the growing popularity of less traditional office spaces.

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— Victoria Pruitt

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CoworkingLoopOffice Market