Are Coworking and Networking “the future of office”?

Tishman Speyer is betting on amenities, programming and shared spaces as “part of the future of office” by going global with its ZO program, giving clients access to lounges and clubhouses at 41 locations worldwide, including four in San Francisco.

The program, which provides members with both a casual space to work and networking events at Tishman Speyer buildings, “can help our customers encourage office attendance and attract and retain top talent,” EB Kelly, senior managing director at Tishman Speyer in charge of ZO, said via email.

Tishman Speyer isn’t alone in looking to amenities to lure workers back to the office setting. The ZO program is part of a wider shift towards emphasizing experiences in office buildings that was on the rise before the pandemic, but has really come to the fore as a way to give office workers some of the amenities they have become used to at home, according to Nick Slonek of Avison Young. The brokerage represents 44 Montgomery Street, which has a similar amenities program called Shift from coworking brand Industrious. It puts on social events, fitness classes and community service days in select Beacon Capital Partners’ office buildings across the country.

“People now, if they’re going to work, they’re living more in their space as if it were a home office versus an office office,” Slonek said. “You want to hang out and take advantage of the different stuff that’s there.”

Tishman Speyer’s ZO program originally launched in 2017, but before ZO Global Access tenants could only utilize the lounge spaces, “nap pods” and events in their own buildings. With the global program that started last month, they can now utilize ZO spaces in New York, Seattle, Chicago, D.C., Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco, as well as eight international locations from Brazil to England.

Since the end of last month, the company has seen “a mix of locals looking for a place to work for a few hours and people traveling from across our global markets” who can now use a ZO space to network instead of their hotel lobby, Kelly said.

ZO’s San Francisco locations are at 333 Bush Street, One Bush Street, 160 Spear Street and 595 Market Street.

Locally, The Roxborough Group, which leases space at One Bush Street, and T. Rowe Price at 333 Bush Street have reached out to learn more about the new global program, according to Carl Shannon, Tishman Speyer’s senior managing director for Northern California and Seattle. This month, Tishman Speyer plans to feature event programming promoting AAPI Heritage Month in both Bush buildings that will be open to “the entire region” as well, he said.

Tishman Speyer also has a more traditional co-working office product called Studio, which is separate from ZO but has some overlaps. For example, ZO amenities in San Francisco range from outdoor and lobby-level lounges to day passes to Studio locations at 333 Bush and 595 Market.

Tishman Speyer “stole a page out of the WeWork playbook a little bit,” with its new global ZO offering, Avison Young’s Slonek said.

“If you’re a member of WeWork, you’re a member of WeWork and you can go wherever you want to go,” he said, adding that he could see ZO being useful to San Francisco companies that want to utilize amenities their own buildings don’t have, as well as when employees travel to other cities.

Amenities spaces are not only “experience elevators,” Slonek said, but a way to cut costs for tenants because they don’t need to allow for those social and networking uses when deciding how much space they need in their offices.

Tishman Speyer also added more Studio and Studio Gather flex space to an apartment tower in the first phase of Mission Rock because such facilities had been “performing really, really well” at other locations in the city, Tishman Speyer Managing Director Maggie Kaden told TRD last fall. The added flexibility has had companies that are looking at lab space in a neighboring building intrigued by the idea of signing onto a smaller footprint, with room to expand or host work events as needed, she said.