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One thing that’s fairly certain after over a year of debating the impact of Covid-19 on the offices market, is that flexible workspace is likely to be in increased demand as part of new hybrid working models. What hasn’t been mentioned so much to date is the role that universities and higher education institutions could play in supplying and/or operating some of this space.
The use of flexible workspace was obviously a major trend prior to Covid-19. Serviced office operators such as WeWork and IWG were actively chasing larger businesses as clients, leading to more traditional landlords also offering some of their office space on a flexible basis to tenants. For organisations, flexible spaces satisfy a lot of challenges that both pre-dated and have emerged from the pandemic.
While universities themselves may explore accommodating some of their own staff in such flexible spaces to reflect new working trends, the bigger opening for them here lies in possibly becoming flexible landlords themselves.
Many universities are relatively unusual in that they still own the majority of their offices. Where those offices are permanently or temporarily under-utilised, particularly out of term time, then leasing it on a short-term basis to third parties might bring added income.
There are a number of routes universities can explore to offer space to the open market, ranging from leasing it to a flexible workspace operator to operating it themselves as a flexible provider. For the latter, there are an increasing number of companies which will ‘white label’ the space so that it appears that the university is the ultimate landlord, but they undertake all the mechanics of fitting-out, leasing and managing it.
Flexible workspace is not only for offices, although this remains the majority of the market at the moment. We also believe that there is an opportunity for universities to provide laboratory space on a flexible basis as the sector is currently very under-supplied, particularly in locations including London.
Another benefit for universities, and indeed for any tenants that choose to occupier the space they could provide, is around knowledge-sharing and community. Historically the higher education sector has been at the forefront of the delivery of incubator spaces on campuses, research and science parks across the world. Many private-sector organisations would value the opportunity to work in closer proximity to students and academic staff, and the ability to lease spaces on campus where idea-sharing could be facilitated would be an exciting new option for companies in knowledge-based industries.
Some companies are already delivering such space on their own campuses: Facebook, for instance, offers incubator space in its offices to start-ups and innovators with whom they would like to work in the future.
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