WeWork Squeezes People Into Just Half the Space of Most Offices
- Each work station is estimated at an average 5.1 square meters
- IWG’s Regus offices allocates about 12 square meters
WeWork location in the City of London.
Photographer: Luke MacGregor/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Here’s a superlative that didn’t get much attention in WeWork’s 220-page prospectus for its planned initial public offering: it jams more people into its spaces than just about any other commercial landlord.
In London, WeWork provides about half of the 8-to-10 square meters per person recommended by the British Council for Offices industry association. The company’s recently opened space in the Waterloo district, the largest co-working facility in the world, has a 6,414-person capacity, according to a document WeWork emailed to brokers. That equates to less than 4.1 square meters a person, according to Bloomberg News’ calculations. That’s roughly the size of two standard doors laying side by side.