With coworking spaces growing on a global scale, we looked at the booming flexible workplace market in Prague. The popularity of the city's coworking office market, which only began about 9 years ago, is on the rise and attracting international operators sich as Business Link or WeWork.

KEY FACTS: 

• The coworking concept first came to Prague in 2009 and the submarket has been growing since then with new places of various sizes, design and specialization popping up around the city every year.
• Prague currently has 28 coworking centres and 21 serviced office locations. Further growth is expected in the coming years especially in the coworking segment.
• The largest number of coworking centres is currently found within the borders of Prague 1, followed by Prague 2 and Prague 8.
• Monthly unlimited use of a hot desk within shared open space costs between 1,900 - 6,500 CZK. Fixed desk in shared area generally costs by 1,000 CZK more, which is around half of the monthly price for a private serviced office.

UPCOMING OPENINGS:

• WeWork to open their first coworking centre in the Czech Republic in 2019. The space will be located at Národní třída in Prague 1.
• Spaces (by IWG) also nearing opening of a new coworking centre at Národní třída in Prague 1.
• HubHub to expand their centre at Na Příkopě 14 and open their second coworking site in Prague during 2019 at Jungmannovo náměstí in Prague 1.

Serviced offices vs. Coworking space

It all started with serviced offices, a form of a flexible office providing fully furnished and equipped office space with full administrative and maintenance support, rented for a short period. Such flexible offices are currently offered on the Prague market by three larger operators, Regus (IWG), Flexi offices s.r.o. and Scott & Weber and a smaller company Profi-kancelář s.r.o. By the end of 2018 this market segment will welcome New Work, who will be opening their first serviced offices in Coral Office Park.

The coworking concept, where a person rents a workplace (hot desk or fixed desk) in a work environment shared with other “strangers”, was first introduced in Prague at the end of 2009 with the opening of Coffice at náměstí I. P. Pavlova. Since then the coworking market segment in the capital city has been growing every year with additional three coworking centres opened during 2010, namely Locus, Impact Hub and Creators. And from just four coworking spaces up and running in 2010 this subsector expanded to 28 operational centres in 2018.

The two shared workspace segments, serviced offices and coworking centres, are blurring to the point of negligible differentiation. Coworking centres are adding private offices to their layouts and serviced offices are turning into more trendy workplaces adding shared community areas to reflect the coworking trend. Existing alongside each other, both concepts provide the market with more office options than ever before.

Many coworking centres focus more on supporting and fostering their community and offer education and networking events, knowledge sharing and mentoring to their members.

PRICING:

The more expensive membership Packages often include other benefits such as free of charge access to events and workshops, yoga classes, use sauna, etc.