Is Co-Working The Next Hot Retail Concept?

Co-working is a rapidly expanding industry and it’s not just changing workspaces, it’s changing adjacent industries, including retail. In October 2017, 8-year-old co-working company WeWork made a deal to buy Hudson’s Bay Fifth Avenue property Lord & Taylor flagship store for $850 million, raising not just eyebrows but red flags as to the future of both retail and office facilities. As companies such as WeWork, Co-Optim and NeueHouse pop up, it’s prompting some to wonder if the changing nature of work is giving rise to a new kind of retail experience. WeWork plans to turn the former Lord & Taylor space into its New York headquarters after the 2018 holiday season, with Lord & Taylor continuing to operate in the same building in a smaller capacity. The Hudson Bay/WeWork partnership will also include WeWork space on the upper floors of the Hudson’s Bay locations on Queen Street in Toronto and Granville Street in Vancouver in Canada, and in the Galleria Kaufhof in Frankfurt, Germany. It’s part of what appears to be a larger retail push for WeWork, which declined to comment to Retail Dive for this story but has been rumored to be investing in several retail startup tech companies. Read more at Retail Dive.