Six years after WeWork took the office market by storm with its breakthrough co-working real estate concept, the New York-based startup set its eyes on the next big opportunity for its communal real estate business model: co-living.
WeLive launched early last year with locations in Lower Manhattan and Arlington, Va., and the company has plans to expand to as many as 14 cities in the coming years.
WeLive turns the traditional multifamily rental model on its head. Gone is the long-term lease agreement; Tenants are “members” who can stay month to month, even day to day. Eventually, as the WeLive network expands, members will be able to move freely city to city, as needed, at no additional cost.
From a practicality standpoint, co-living makes complete sense for young, single, and highly mobile working professionals. The spaces are well designed, fully furnished, filled with attractive amenities, and come complete with all the niceties of modern living: towels and linens, housekeeping services, HDTVs, premium cable, high-speed WiFi, concierge staff, even free refreshments like tea, coffee, and fruit water. Think apartment complex meets hotel—but with a crucial twist.
The secret sauce, according to WeWork, is the “We” in WeLive: spaces and programs designed to foster a strong sense of community and connection with other members. Each location has a full-time community concierge team, which organizes events like movie nights, cocktail hours, and formal and informal meals in a communal kitchen. The mailroom and laundry room double as bars and event spaces, and amenities like a rooftop deck and a hot tub encourage tenants to meet and mingle.
WeWork has no shortage of competitors in the co-living market space. Common, HubHaus, Krash, Node, Open Door, Pure House, and Roam Co-living are among the dozen or so startups that are aiming to profit from the mainstreaming of the “hacker house,” commune, or boarding house dwelling models. Investors have taken notice, and have pumped millions into these fledgling businesses. (Common, for instance, has raised more than $23 million from multiple investors since its founding in 2015. With this funding, the startup has opened 13 developments across four metros: Chicago, New York, San Francisco area, and Washington, D.C.)
While it’s too early to claim any of these budding businesses as a resounding success, the co-living craze is the latest example of the startup world looking to shake up the slow-to-evolve, $228 trillion (yes, trillion! tinyurl.com/REworth) global real estate market. Whether it’s Google, WeWork, or Airbnb—or countless other startups and tech firms—it is clear that investors see colossal dollar signs tied to disrupting the tried-and-true real estate and construction markets.
Will your firm join them?
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
Brooklyn's tallest building reaches 514 feet
With the Brooklyner now topped off, the 514-foot-high apartment tower is Brooklyn's tallest building. Designed by New York-based Gerner Kronick + Valcarcel Architects and developed by The Clarett Group, the soaring 51-story tower is constructed of cast-in-place concrete and clad with window walls and decorative metal panels.
| Aug 11, 2010
RMJM unveils design details for $1B green development in Turkey
RMJM has unveiled the design for the $1 billion Varyap Meridian development it is master planning in Istanbul, Turkey's Atasehir district, a new residential and business district. Set on a highly visible site that features panoramic views stretching from the Bosporus Strait in the west to the Sea of Marmara to the south, the 372,000-square-meter development includes a 60-story tower, 1,500 resi...
| Aug 11, 2010
'Feebate' program to reward green buildings in Portland, Ore.
Officials in Portland, Ore., have proposed a green building incentive program that would be the first of its kind in the U.S. Under the program, new commercial buildings, 20,000 sf or larger, that meet Oregon's state building code would be assessed a fee by the city of up to $3.46/sf. The fee would be waived for buildings that achieve LEED Silver certification from the U.
| Aug 11, 2010
Colonnade fixes setback problem in Brooklyn condo project
The New York firm Scarano Architects was brought in by the developers of Olive Park condominiums in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn to bring the facility up to code after frame out was completed. The architects designed colonnades along the building's perimeter to create the 15-foot setback required by the New York City Planning Commission.
| Aug 11, 2010
U.S. firm designing massive Taiwan project
MulvannyG2 Architecture is designing one of Taipei, Taiwan's largest urban redevelopment projects. The Bellevue, Wash., firm is working with developer The Global Team Group to create Aquapearl, a mixed-use complex that's part of the Taipei government's "Good Looking Taipei 2010" initiative to spur redevelopment of the city's Songjian District.
| Aug 11, 2010
Recycled Pavers Elevate Rooftop Patio
The new three-story building at 3015 16th Street in Minot, N.D., houses the headquarters of building owner Investors Real Estate Trust (IRET), as well as ground-floor retail space and 71 rental apartments. The 215,000-sf mixed-use building occupies most of the small site, while parking takes up the remainder.
| Aug 11, 2010
Housing America's Heroes 7 Trends in the Design of Homes for the Military
Take a stroll through a new residential housing development at many U.S. military posts, and you'd be hard-pressed to tell it apart from a newer middle-class neighborhood in Anywhere, USA. And that's just the way the service branches want it. The Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines have all embarked on major housing upgrade programs in the past decade, creating a military housing construction boom.
| Aug 11, 2010
Loft Condo Conversion That's Outside the Box
Few people would have taken a look at a century-old cigar box factory with crumbling masonry and rotted wood beams and envisioned stylish loft condos, but Miles Development Partners did just that. And they made that vision a reality at Box Factory Lofts in historic Ybor City, Fla. Once the largest cigar box plant in the world, the Tampa Box Company produced boxes of many shapes and sizes, spec...
| Aug 11, 2010
World's tallest all-wood residential structure opens in London
At nine stories, the Stadthaus apartment complex in East London is the world’s tallest residential structure constructed entirely in timber and one of the tallest all-wood buildings on the planet. The tower’s structural system consists of cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels pieced together to form load-bearing walls and floors. Even the elevator and stair shafts are constructed of prefabricated CLT.
| Aug 11, 2010
CityCenter Takes Experience Design To New Heights
It's early June, in Las Vegas, which means it's very hot, and I am coming to the end of a hardhat tour of the $9.2 billion CityCenter development, a tour that began in the air-conditioned comfort of the project's immense sales center just off the famed Las Vegas Strip and ended on a rooftop overlooking the largest privately funded development in the U.
