Common Desk expands footprint in the Ion

Common Desk has expanded its occupancy and recommitted long-term to one of Houston’s most innovative office buildings.

The coworking space provider and WeWork subsidiary will now lease 86,400 square feet, up from 58,400 square feet, on the second through fourth floors in the Ion, located at 4201 Main Street, the Houston Business Journal reported. 

Common Desk’s lease with building owner Rice Management has the company locked into the building for an additional 10 years. Common Desk president and founder Nick Clark has seen his business thrive since moving into the Ion, an amenity-rich building that reached full occupancy less than a year after opening in August 2021. 

“We’ve always felt like that project was going to be something spectacular,” Clark told the outlet. “We really felt like it was going to be one of those real estate projects that kind of became a beacon that could attract people from a wider area because it’s truly an entrepreneurial hub.”

The Ion’s amenities include restaurants, a bar and taproom, fitness center, prototyping labs and 50,000 square feet of conference and event space, according to its website. In an October report, the Houston metro was ranked as a top-10 market for coworking spaces, with 208 spread across the city. 

The flexibility of coworking spaces is perhaps one of the reasons why Houston has had one of the best return-to-office ratios of any metro in the nation. 

Common Desk has leases in several other parts of Houston as well, including Westchase, Uptown and Greater East End.

—Quinn Donoghue