Suburban Office Building Ditched Coworking Franchise to Launch Fast and Lower Costs
A property owner with a generic class B multi-story office building in the west suburbs of Chicago had a vacant building and signed an agreement with a leading franchise group. The coworking franchise group was slow and expenses. We helped them launch their own brand at a lower costs and in 3 months.
The Problem
The leading franchise group was slow to respond to construction and build out questions resulting in months of costing delay. The existing space had built out small offices and conference rooms and was suppose to launch in 3 months, when cash flow was expected and needed to finance the property. In addition to delays, startups costs and furnishings costs were already ballooning past intial expectations.
The Client
The client was an indiependet property owner with less than fivecommercial properties and lived over 1,000 miles away. The coworking space was to take two out of three floors of the building, increasing occupancy in a difficult office environemnt. He wanted a 90% turnkey operation with a launchplan with no more than 2 annual trips to the property for business.
The Goal
The goal was to start launch a coworking / executive suite operation in the next 3 months, limit additional build out, and start generating a monthly profit within 9 months. The coworking space's goal was to finance the property for a future payout while limiting the owner's need to for daily partcipation.
DenSwap Services
Feasibility Study to determine the best market positioning of the space and a realistic business model based on local demographics, competition, and the exsisting sapce.
After the feasibility came back positive and met the owner's goals, Launch Consulting was used to quickly help the client convert vacant space in a revenue driving asset.
- Furniture selection, software selection, staffing strategy, pricing, website design, marketing, and policies.
Fractional Executive Services has continued to be used to continually evaluate operations, answer staffing questions, pricing, and customer relationship questions.
Result
The client opened the new coworking space within 3 months at less than 60% of the franchise orginal projections, significantly de-risking the business. The space launched with over 30% occupancy and it was profitable within 7 months of opening. The owner is looking to expand the coworking space to take up the entire building in order to increase profits by elminating the need to pay broker fees, vacanicies between large tenants, and costly TI every few years.
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