SOMO Cowork

Starting a coworking space can be an expensive and time-consuming endeavor for property developers. Before spending months of time and millions of dollars building out the space, dedicated staff, and purchasing furniture they wanted to be confident in coworking's potential financial return.

Understand the viability of coworking:

• Are there enough potential customers?
• How should the space be positioned compared to competitors?
• What are the expected build out and furnishing costs?
• What's the return on investment in the long-term?

Avoid costly mistakes in major categories early on:

• Design a floor plan that meets the local coworking demand, drives revenue and meets the changing demands in a post-COVID office space
• Select furniture that is adaptable and cost-effective for a coworking space
• Select Information Technology and Software that will effectively operate the space with minimal staff for leasing
• Amenity selection that will drive sales and community interaction

Somo Living is a property development company building a large mixed use project in San Clemente, north of San Francisco. They want to quickly fill their property with businesses that will enhance the rest of the development including homes, restaurants, and retail. Coworking and flexible offices seemed like a viable option and they wanted to understand the market and the site's potential.

A new housing and mixed-use development in San Clemente, north of San Francisco, was contemplating adding a large coworking space to their development. The developers wanted to understand:

• If a coworking space could succeed at the location
• What its market position should be based on the demographics and competitors
• Have a projection of revenue and costs

DenSwap broke the solution into two phases.

DenSwap started with a Focus and Feasibility Study to help determine if a coworking space would succeed in the area, drafted a floor plan that fits the customers needs, generated profits, and created a strong community for the space to have a strong competitive advantage against new competitors in the future. A monthly pro-forma was developed for the first year that was projected.

Phase 1: Coworking Space Viability

• Market research to determine sustainable square footage of flex office and market opportunities
• Competitive Analysis
• Identify opportunities
• Recommend coworking type and suitable building types
• Floor plan recommendations
• Pro-forma for the first year

Phase 2: Preparing to Open

Recommendations and guidance that fits the target coworking customer while being cost-effective:

• Space: Office furniture, common area, meeting room, IT hardware, access control, kitchen items, printer and printing management
• Business Pricing: Office pricing, membership plan structure, meeting room pricing and strategy, event pricing
• Marketing: Branding review, website evaluation, marketing material, advertising budget and placement recommendations
• Staffing: Overall staffing strategy, personal roles and responsibilities, job descriptions, training
• Operations: Coworking management software selection, membership agreement templates, member space policies, daily to-dos, community event recommendations