WeWork goes suburban, to open in Coral Gables this fall

Co-working giant WeWork will open a location in Coral Gables this fall, The Real Deal has learned.

WeWork will lease space at Giralda Place, a mixed-use project under construction in downtown Coral Gables, a spokesperson confirmed on Thursday.

WeWork Ponce De Leon will take up 34,000 square feet including the first floor and floors 3 to 7 of the eastern office tower at 2222 Ponce de Leon Boulevard. It will offer spaces for up to 550 members, with private office for one to 16 people, conference rooms, phone booths, community bars, pantries and event space, according to the WeWork spokesperson.

Developers Heidi Eckes-Chantre, Kim Tabet and Christopher Brown are building the mixed-use project, which will have 101,300 square feet of office space and nearly 14,000 square feet of retail on the ground floor. WeWork will be located in the existing seven-story, 43,602-square-foot building fronting Ponce de Leon Boulevard that’s being renovated.

The west tower is a nine-story, 57,700-square-foot building that topped off in March and will be delivered in December. Overall, Giralda Place will also have 33 luxury condos, a fitness center and pool deck.

Cushman & Wakefield’s Gordon Messinger, who is handling office leasing for the project, could not be reached for comment.

WeWork will test the depth of the Gables office market’s appetite for co-working space.

Other shared office provides have launched in Coral Gables in recent years. Pipeline opened in 2015 at 95 Merrick Way, which is a five-minute walk from WeWork’s future space. Regus has two locations in the Gables, one at One Alhambra Plaza and the other at 2332 Galiano Street.

Adam Wacenske, general manager for WeWork’s southern region, said in a statement that the company is “encouraged by the interest and growth we’ve seen in the region.”

In South Florida, WeWork has opened at Brickell City Centre and in Miami Beach, and announced a lease in 2015 for the 16-story Security Building in downtown Miami, the latter of which totals about 96,000 square feet. WeWork has yet to open that space.

WeWork has so far opened in Miami in smaller buildings where it can have a bigger footprint, said Steven Hurwitz, a partner at Coral Gables-based CREC. That gives “Corporate America” the option to immediately lease an entire floor, for example, with the flexibility to control their investment and time commitment to a market like Coral Gables, he said.

An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated WeWork’s square footage. The company is leasing 34,000 square feet, not 6,300.