New coworking space opening in June

Amsterdam-based firm Spaces will open next month the country’s largest coworking space, noting that the demand in the Philippines is “exceptional.”

In a briefing, country manager Lars Wittig said they would open in June the company’s first site in the Philippines, a 500-square meter coworking space.

Spaces, which Wittig called the first and largest international provider of this type of office space, would offer competitive rates to both startups and Fortune 500 companies.

The firm, a sister company of office space provider Regus, would be located in World Plaza, Bonifacio Global City, where it would occupy over 3,000 square meters of space.

“Coworking space is a term of yesterday. What we are building is a community,” he said, noting that it would even have Wild Flour Bakery + Café Corp. to serve Spaces’ patrons.

According to a separate statement, the company said the area would have more than 400 workstations, with ample space for private meetings in offices and meeting rooms.

While Wittig deferred from disclosing the investment cost, he said each square meter would at least be “35 percent” more expensive than the space under the Regus brand, the latter already being more expensive than typical commercial leases.

Despite this, he said Spaces World Plaza would offer rates competitive with those offered by small local players.

Regus has been getting a lot of inquiries in recent months, he said. Each month this year, there were 22 percent to 33 percent more inquiries received than year-ago levels.

Last month alone, he said they had almost 1,300 inquiries. These, however, are inquiries addressed to Regus. Nevertheless, he said the opening of Spaces on June 4 would take a slice out of that pie.

Spaces, which was founded more than a decade ago, has commercial presence in other parts of the globe, such as Europe, the United States and Asia.

He said Spaces was considering to expand to two more sites in the Philippines soon.