Amid the global pandemic, as many businesses eye reopening, many leaders are looking at what the future workspace will look like after the crisis.
And while some companies have gone with a traditional approach, others have decided to permanently adopt work from home and other hybrid models. Now, a new, unlikely company is getting into the common workspace market. The Statler, the historic hotel in downtown Dallas near Main Street Gardens, announced the opening of a new initiative to provide personalized workspaces to entrepreneurs in the region.
“We recognize that people are working differently now,” Michael Kelly, director of sales and marketing at the Statler, said in a statement. “However, they still need to create professional experiences for their companies and their clients. We have resources that make it possible for people to book space to accommodate meetings and... have socially distanced work environments.”
Through its Work with Us initiative, the Statler is offering access to its workspaces and booking of meeting spaces, which range from about 425 square-feet to more than 12,000 square-feet. Like many coworking-type office spaces, the Statler’s offering includes access to its office space tech like A/V equipment. However, since at its core it is a hotel, it has also created custom menus for those long lunch meetings.
As Dallas continues to see daily Covid-19 cases in the hundreds, the Statler is stepping up its safety measures as it opens its working spaces. In addition to hand sanitizing stations and some contactless door locks, it is also planning to clean the workspaces between uses to help prevent the spread of the virus.
“The Statler Hotel really can become your… workspace by providing support to the business community in the way they need it most right now,” Kelly said. “From the time they break the seal on the door to enter their sanitized workspace until they depart our property, our team is onsite to ensure a safe and productive work atmosphere.”
While some companies in the Metroplex like Bottle Rocket and Asset Panda have permanently embraced the work from anywhere model, at a recent virtual roundtable hosted by the Dallas Business Journal, Dallas-based coworking company WorkSuites’ CEO Flip Howard said companies like this have been seeing increased demand in their spaces as many businesses eye hybrid working models due to the pandemic exposing many physical office spaces as too large for their needs.
It’s a trend that tracks with recent announcements in the region. Recently, WorkSuites and Florida-based coworking company Venture X opened new spaces in the Metroplex, both with more of an emphasis on private office spaces during the pandemic. The crisis has also led many coworking companies to roll out new features. In March, Dallas-based Common Desk launched a WFH membership, which offers virtual mailing, social (distancing) clubs, online resources and a one-day pass per month after things go back to “business as usual.” WorkSuites has launched a remote learning room for students of its members called Zoom Rooms, where kids can go and get their own private desk to participate in online classes and do schoolwork. Others, who aren’t yet beginning classes, can snag an iPad to keep entertained while their parents work. The rooms are also hooked up with free wifi and networked printers to help with online schooling and will include a monitor to help keep those doing schoolwork on track.
“People are no longer looking to work in an open area with other people, so they are working from home,” Tosha Bontrager, senior director of brand and strategy at WorkSuites, told NTX Inno earlier this month. “People want and need a physical office, but only want to go to the office a couple days a week. We think this trend will be around for a long time now that people are so used to working from home.”
