Industrious to gobble up more space in West Loop

WeWork rival Industrious is growing its footprint in the Loop.

The shared workspace provider is expanding from 46,500 square feet to 93,000 square feet at 500 W. Madison St., a 1.5-million-square-foot office tower owned by KBS Realty Advisors, according to Crain’s.

Industrious, founded by Jamie Hodari and Justin Stewart in 2013, has eight locations in the Chicago area. While much of WeWork’s deals are traditional leases with landlords, Industrious inks management agreements with the building owners and finds enterprise clients.

It’s not clear what Industrious is paying for the space, but deals typically run between $25 and $30 a square foot at the office tower, which was rebranded the “Accenture Tower” earlier this year. KBS renovated the tower in 2015.

Industrious has been growing rapidly over the last two years. The flexible office space firm acquired another co-working company, TechSpace, earlier this year. In June, it announced a partnership with Hines to open flexible-office locations across the U.S. And in August, it raised $80 million in a Series D round.

Chicago is projected to have 3.2 million square feet of co-working space by the end of the year, and 4.2 million square feet by the end of December, according to Newmark Knight Frank data.

WeWork leases more than 1 million square feet of space in Chicago. Adam Neumann announced Tuesday that he would be stepping down as CEO and move into the role of nonexecutive chairman.

Artie Minson, the company’s CFO, and Sebastian Gunningham, its vice chairman, will replace Neumann as interim co-CEOs while the company searches for a permanent head. [Crain’s] — James Kleimann