Spaces Opens 20-Storey Co-Working Centre in HK’s Central District

Spaces, a co-working stablemate of flexible office giant Regus, has opened its fourth and largest location in Hong Kong, unveiling a 77,000 square foot (7,153 square metre) facility in the western end of Central district last week.

Spaces Sun House held its coming out party on Thursday opening the twenty-storey centre at 181 Des Voeux Road just six months after the Amsterdam-based firm began operating its first location in Hong Kong.

The ten-year-old co-working operator plans to open yet another centre in Hong Kong next month as competition heats up among flexible office providers in the city.

Getting a Flexible Office Foothold in Central

Spaces’ latest location provides a much sought-after location in Central, occupying the same block as Infinitus Plaza, just minutes away from the Wing On department store, and offers small teams the chance to secure views of Victoria harbour from the newly renovated premises.

“Central and Sheung Wan have always been core business districts,” Nancy Yip, Area Director for Hong Kong with IWG, the parent firm of Spaces and Regus said in a statement. “Spaces Sun House is situated in a premium location in Sheung Wan, which is adjacent to the MTR station and merely a short walk away from business landmarks such as the International Finance Center (IFC) and Exchange Square.”

To emphasise the community aspect of the facility, Spaces includes a 7,000 square feet “Business Club” spanning the ground, mezzanine and first floors that allows for hot-desking, informal meetings and interaction among members. The second floor is dedicated to meeting rooms, while the third through nineteenth floors provide private offices to accommodate teams of from one to 40 members. The company leases its space on flexible terms of from one to 24 months.

On the twentieth floor Spaces Sun House has a 2,000 square foot event space with views of the harbour and which connects to a rooftop party area.

A Cooperative Renovation Project

Spaces leased the Sun House building along Central’s main commercial thoroughfare in September 2017, with the office provider joining with the building’s owner, the Sun Company, to create a new office community. Since then the 1977 vintage commercial building has been transformed into 130 private offices, 800 workstations, several floors of co-working space, indoor and outdoor event venues and a screening room.

“We are delighted to join hands with Spaces to bring forth Spaces Sun House as Hong Kong’s first-ever co-working tower,” Clifford Lok, Director of The Sun Company, Limited said in the statement. “Our decision to collaborate with Spaces reflects our confidence in the great potential of the local co-working space market.”

At 77,000 square feet, the new co-working centre will be among the city’s largest flexible office locations, with WeWork reportedly having leased 100,000 square feet at Nan Fung and Link REIT’s The Quayside in Kowloon East and Kr Space having signed up for 83,000 square feet at Chinachems’s One Hennessy in Wanchai. Both of those facilities have yet to open.

Wanchai Location to Open Next Month

This latest opening in Central gives Spaces locations in most of Hong Kong’s primary business hubs, including Kowloon East, Causeway Bay and Wong Chuk Hang in southern Hong Kong, with a fifth centre set up open in Wanchai during February.

The company’s upcoming centre on Hennessy Road will provide as much as 22,700 square feet of workspace across 12 floors within three minutes walk of Wanchai metro station. Following the completion of that location, the company will have a total of 236,800 square feet of office space in Hong Kong providing up to 2,800 workstations.

Spaces has also opened three centres in Singapore to bring its Asia-Pacific locations to a total of 29 open and operating facilities in Australia, mainland China, India, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand. More centres are expected to open this year including presences in New Zealand, Indonesia and Vietnam.

IWG Continues Asia Expansion

The Spaces Sun House opening came during the same month that IWG announced plans to open its first location of No18, the company’s high-end co-working brand, in Singapore during the third quarter of this year. IWG officials have told Mingtiandi that No18 will also be introduced to Hong Kong in the near future, as well as to other gateway cities in the region.

IWG said last year that it would double the footprint of Spaces globally during 2018. The company, which operates more than 50 million square feet of space across its range of serviced office and co-working brands, also plans to open the first Asian location for its high-end “Signature by Regus” serviced office brand in Singapore in June.