SINGAPORE – Flexible work spaces are in hot demand, and International Workplace Group (IWG) has brought in two new co-working brands to ride the trend.
IWG, formerly known as Regus, recently set up OpenOffice at Fortune Centre on Sept 1. The 640sq ft office sits on level 16 of Fortune Centre.
The Switzerland-based company also opened the HQ co-working office at 1 Liang Seah Street on Oct 1, which currently takes up about 2,000 sq ft of space in the shophouse building. It will eventually take up to 5,000 sq ft of space in total.
The OpenOffice brand was originally from Japan, while the HQ brand was from the United States. Both brands are now owned and operated by IWG.
These two new flexible work spaces signal the expansion of IWG in Singapore, and bring the total number of flexible work space brands under IWH in the city to six, and 25 co-working spaces. The four other brands are Regus, Signature, Spaces, and No.18, with various locations in the Central Business District (CBD), Marina Bay area and Changi Business Park.
IWG first opened in Singapore in 1999 under the brand Regus in the CBD and occupied a combined 86,000 sq ft of office space.
About 65 per cent of IWG’s clients in Singapore are multinational companies, with the remainder being small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Most of the clients taking up space in IWG’s flexible working spaces here are in the technology, artificial intelligence or finance sector.
A monthly subscription with IWG ranges approximately from $1,600 to $7,000, depending on the size and configuration of the office.
Occupancy rates for IWG’s office spaces in Singapore are in the high 70%, said Mr Vijayakumar Tangarasan, IWG’s country head for Singapore, Malaysia, and Brunei.
As office space availability in the CBD is quite tight, he said, it has pushed the company to look at “almost the entire Singapore” for future flexible work spaces.
AI and technology firms have drive up demand for limited Grade A office space, leading the overall CBD office vacancy to fall to 5.9%, the lowest in 10 quarters, said global commercial real estate services and investment management company JLL.
Mr Tangarasan shared that IWG intends to open more flexible working offices outside the CBD as well, such as Paya Lebar, with the aim of growing its spaces between 10% and 20% year-on-year.
Another reason behind the demand in flexible work spaces is that “nobody wants to spend huge money in a very uncertain environment”, said Mr Tangarasan. “They don’t want to use capital expenditure to put in money. They want something that they can move their head office or regional office into immediately, and not for a long period of time.”
A mix of local and international companies also operate co-working spaces in Singapore, such as JustCo, The Work Project, The Great Room by Industrious, The Hive, The Executive Centre and Arcc Spaces.
Homegrown company JustCo announced in July it was taking up five levels of co-working and retail spaces, and another five levels of co-living apartments at Orchard Point.
