Last year, Forbes issued a report detailing the rise of the gig economy in the United States. From freelance writers to part-time Uber drivers, from graphic designers to wedding photographers, more than 57 million Americans (representing one-third of the country’s workforce) is considered part of this gig umbrella. So, where are all those people working?
While Starbucks and local craft coffee houses offer free WiFi, creating makeshift offices for people, a newer kind of office-yet-not-an-office environment has become more popular and more available: the co-working space.
Co-working spaces offer a respite for creatives and startups and entrepreneurs from noisy coffee shops or their homes, and provide an environment that resembles a place they used to work and can create, but without the restrictions of a typical corporate environment. And these co-working spaces in the Phoenix area are booming and becoming more and more pocket-friendly for freelancers and startups who need a place to work and do business. Not just for entrepreneurs anymore, high-end facilities like Workuity in Phoenix and Chandler, feature over 60 shared offices per location.
And while the WeWork’s of the world are continuing their expansion west here in the Phoenix area with clean cut office spaces in the city’s thriving and revitalized galvanized downtown district, a locally grown co-working company is planting its own flag and doing what it can to let its clients create their own cultures rather than flying under a corporate banner.
Workuity, which houses two natural light-filled offices in the Phoenix area (2390 E Camelback Rd in Phoenix, and 3133 W Frye Rd in Chandler), offers its tenants-everyone from one-off graphic designers doing their own work to small tech startups holding down a conference room-an opportunity to build out their company culture while making solid working connections with those under the same roof.
At both locations, tenants can take advantage of everything from coffee bars to conference rooms to mailing addresses to networking events, something CEO Dan Kite stresses is a big selling point for people wanting to make the right moves forward.
Kite, whose background stems from the hotel and theater industries, saw the growth opportunity that comes with co-working. Names like WeWork stand out, but local projects, like Workuity, are paving the way to boost the different industries in Arizona that are seeing their own surge, like tech and research and development.
“Small companies want big time amenities. Our spaces are designed to bring those amenities to them while providing a space that will enhance the company’s image. Their modern design is built to impress,” Kite notes.
Earlier this year, Phoenix and Tempe landed high on the list of top cities in the United States to grab real estate for tech startups or annexed offices for tech-geared companies. The list, compiled by global investment and research firm CBRE, shined a light on Arizona’s growing tech sector, something mirrored by CBS’ own list placing Phoenix at number three on the country’s fastest-growing tech cities.
In another report from CompTIA, Arizona touts significant growth in the tech sector’s available jobs, including a net job gain year-over-year of 5,127 and a 174-percent increase in emerging tech jobs, like data science, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity engineering. What’s more, the report goes on to illustrate that the tech sector supports about $31 billion of the state’s economic development. With that in mind, it’s easy to see why Arizona has seen a major influx of investors ditching places like New York City and San Francisco to expand co-working spaces here in the desert.
To help create Workuity’s bright and open layouts, Kite has brought on the expertise of Venn Construction, the Scottsdale-based commercial building company responsible for projects in the health care and banking industries. Kite, seeing the future of work changing before our eyes from a traditional environment to a more open and self-sustaining one, used Venn’s background in unique and wide-ranging fields to create spaces that everyone, no matter their industry and background, could be creative and create something they can individually connect to.
Both of Workuity’s locations host lunch and learns for everything from SEO to social media, bringing together professionals who want to make connections with new business opportunities who share a table or sit one office away.
Workuity | (602) 900-1753 | workuity.com
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