Codi opens 36 “private office” locations in LA metro market

UPDATED MARCH 27 at 3 p.m.:

Codi, a rival to bankrupt WeWork, has opened 36 flex offices across greater Los Angeles.

The San Francisco-based platform has leased nearly 92,000 square feet for “private offices” in Santa Monica, Culver City and Los Angeles, the Commercial Observer reported, with more than 50 locations in the pipeline.

Codi, while it rents out flexible offices, insists it’s not a coworking platform. Instead, co-founder and CEO Christelle Rohaut dubs it an “office-as-a-service” company. 

The company helps tenants find private, flexible, turnkey offices, which Rohaut says are often underused before Codi gets its hands on them.

Codi then handles the moving process and office management. It rents the offices it manages through agreements with third-party landlords, with only one company in each location — a key distinction from the shared spaces in the coworking model.

“I’m obsessed with giving life to underutilized spaces,” Rohaut told the Observer. “The commercial real estate industry is outdated, which provides some really exciting opportunities for innovation in how we get these spaces filled.”

The 36 listings in the L.A. metro market include eight in Santa Monica, seven in Century City, five in Culver City and five in central L.A., with the rest in Downtown, Hollywood, on the Sunset Strip, McLaughlin Avenue, and in West L.A. 

Each office contains just over 2,500 square feet, with average rents between $7,000 and $10,000 per month. 

In November, New York-based WeWork filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after losing billions of dollars year after year. Five years earlier, the coworking company was the highest-flying firm in real estate, driven by charismatic CEO Adam Neumann.

Rohaut said that Codi is a natural fit for L.A., not just because it’s the country’s second-biggest office market, but because of the gap that exists between “overcrowded” coworking spaces and expensive, long-term leases.

By offering flexible, one-year leases, she said, Codi finds a market between both.

Codi, launched in 2018 in San Francisco and two years later in New York, has 160,000 square feet of offices under management and another 1.25 million in the pipeline, according to the company. 

In August, Coli launched a marketing campaign it dubbed “WeWon’t,” aimed at attracting tenants affected by WeWork’s office closures. It also set up a “WeWork Relief Fund,” which offers discounted spaces to former WeWork tenants. 

Codi has received the most office requests in Los Angeles, Rohaut said, many from tech and entertainment companies, with demand centered around Santa Monica, Culver City and West Hollywood. 

Clarification: Previous story didn’t clearly distinguish Codi’s business model from coworking.

— Dana Bartholomew

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