Global co-working company WeWork opened its first Minnesota office in the Capella Tower in Minneapolis Monday, nearly two years after the company first expressed interest in a Twin Cities space.
WeWork announced its plans to lease 50,000 square feet in downtown Minneapolis earlier this summer. The finished space takes up three full floors (38 through 40) in the Capella Tower. Offices feature 360-degree views of Minneapolis with a central staircase uniting the three floors. At capacity, WeWork's office can hold 1,000 members, according to a company spokesperson.
"The Twin Cities are a great, entrepreneurial area that’s always been on our radar," said WeWork Midwest community director Megan Dodds. "With the Capella Tower being such an iconic Minneapolis building, it just felt like the right first natural home for us in the Twin Cities."
Founded in 2010, WeWork has 150,000 members in 160 locations across the globe. The company received a $300 million investment from Japan's Softbank earlier this year. The company also completed a $760 million round of funding in July, placing its valuation at $20 billion, which makes it the world's fifth-most valuable technology startup.
Currently, there are around 20 co-working spaces in the Twin Cities area. In Minneapolis, more than 640,000 square feet of office space is used for shared workspace, according to CBRE. 28 percent of that is concentrated in downtown Minneapolis.
With 50,000 square feet in the Capella Tower, WeWork now outranks two other major co-working companies in the downtown area. Fellow New York-based Industrious occupies 20,000 square feet in RBC Plaza, and recently opened a second 34,000 square-foot location in the North Loop's trendy T3 building. WeWork initially indicated interest in the building back in 2015.
Local co-working business COCO completed a year-long renovation to its downtown location, tacking on an additional 15,000 square-feet, bringing the space's total area to just under 40,000 square feet.
NOTE: Minne Inno visited WeWork while it was still under construction. Photos were not allowed. Pictures of the space will be added to this story Friday, the day after Minne Inno's fall meetup at WeWork.
