SPACE JAM: A DESIRE FOR FLEXIBILITY AND CAMARADERIE DRIVES COWORKING AS A REAL ESTATE MEGATREND.

• Author: Since, Kerry
• Position: NC TREND: Coworking

About six years ago, Garrett Tichy left his corporate job to create a marketing agency with a partner. While enjoying the freedom of working from home, they realized their productivity had hit a record low. Wanting a change of scenery, they sublet some office space near downtown Charlotte. Before long, Tichy started thinking about the bigger potential for shared workspace.

"[The landlord wasn't] embracing the space as true coworking," Tichy says. "I thought, 'What if we truly tried to curate and cultivate something intentional?'" Tichy and his partner, who has since left the business, leased an adjacent 3,000-square-foot building and officially opened Hygge Coworking. Pronounced "hoo-gah," hygge is a Danish word that embodies warmth and coziness. Tichy's Hygge strives to create those feelings by offering coffee, Wi-Fi, a place to sit and the opportunity to become involved in a community.

In April, Tichy opened Hygge's fifth and largest location in a renovated 20,000-square-foot space in the fast-developing FreeMoreWest neighborhood in west Charlotte. Each of the site's 47 private offices were leased prior to opening, prompting plans to open more locations and add on-site fitness amenities. The Hygge sites cumulatively total more than 80,000 square feet.

"People like what we're doing," Tichy says. "I want to create a space where you can be yourself. Hygge is a mental state of well-being."

Hygge exemplifies a trend that may upend traditional office real estate. In the "sharing economy," people are renting instead of buying homes, cars, bicycles and office space. Coworking, or the use of shared workspace by a variety of people, has grown rapidly in North Carolina's metropolitan areas, led by New York-based We Work Cos. Inc., Amsterdam-based Spaces, Capitol Broadcasting Co.'s American Underground in Durham, Greensboro's Revolution Mill and others.

Charlotte now has about 850,000 square feet of flexible office space, most added in the last few years, according to Jones Lang LaSalle Inc., a commercial real estate firm. Raleigh-Durham has an estimated 1.2 million square feet, including more than 595,000 square feet added since 2017.

The sector has grown at an average pace of 23% annually since 2010, according to JLL. In 2018, it made up for nearly two-thirds of the country's office market occupancy gains. While still less than 2% of total U.S. office inventory, coworking and flexible workspace may account for 30% by 2030, the company says.

"This...