Lambert Smith Hampton, RARE and Savills have secured Work.Life, Reading town centre’s first co-working space provider, as a tenant at Boultbee Brooks Real Estate/CBRE Global Investors’ The White Building, King’s Road.
Work.Life, which is taking 8,670 sq ft on the ground floor, provides dynamic spaces that ensure co-workers have a productive and enjoyable work environment. Operating by Spring 2017, the space, will offer hot desking and private offices for freelancers and bigger businesses encompassing sitting and standing desks, sound-proofed phone booths, collaborative spaces and quiet retreats, mood rooms, kitchen area, artisan coffee and fast, reliable wi-fi, will be available on a rolling monthly membership basis or to hire by the hour.
The design of the work environment will be a sleek, dynamic and inspiring blend of wood, steel, concrete and glass and will allow people to pick a place to work that supports how they feel – creative, calm, happy or excited, increasing creativity and productivity as a result.
Tom Fletcher, Head of LSH’s Reading office, explains: “The rise of co-working is a huge phenomenon – government figures show there are more than 4.2 million homeworkers in the UK and start-up hungry Millennials are expected to make up 75% of the workforce by 2025.
“The proportion of tech enterprises is three times the national average in Reading. This is a magnet for growth and has helped the town account for 25% of all office take-up in the Thames Valley in 2016. Reading’s connectivity to London and Heathrow, skilled labour pool and amenity offering make it a prime destination for anyone seeking to relocate out of London.”
James Whitcher, of Boultbee Brooks, explains: “We set out to create the most differentiated and user-friendly office building in Reading with The White Building. Not only has that attracted Work.Life as a tenant, but the co-working space they are bringing is providing a huge draw for other occupiers – they can utilise the space themselves to further improve their employees working environment and allow them to feed off the creativity of others.”
