(Image: cplinc.com)
A view from the Capitol Hill WeWork (Image: CHS)
The Capitol Hill location of the WeWork office space chain is closing, leaving the four-year-old, five-story, preservation-minded Kelly Springfield development it has occupied with an uncertain future.
The Capitol Hill shutdown on 11th Ave comes as the company once valued at $47 billion has come crashing to earth under the pandemic-driven changes in work habits and the imploding value of the company’s global real estate portfolio.
A company spokesperson confirmed the planned Seattle closure with CHS Thursday following reports that staff was informing co-working customers that the location was shutting down.
“As part of WeWork’s strategic restructuring efforts, we have made the difficult decision to end our operations at Kelly-Springfield,” the spokesperson said in a statement sent to CHS. “We have offered affected members the option to relocate, with our support, to our other Seattle locations and deeply apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.”
The company did not offer updates on the other Seattle locations it operates but said it would continue to be part of the city.
“Seattle continues to be a priority market for WeWork and we look forward to continuing to provide our members with flexible workspace solutions across our other locations in the city,” the statement reads.
In November, as WeWork filled its first paperwork in a massive bankruptcy case, the company said it was closing a Seattle location on 5th. Seattle tech news site Geekwire reports the office giant has eight locations in the Seattle area.
WeWork’s ambitious opening on Capitol Hill came with the first Monday of 2020. Only weeks later, a wave of office shutdowns and working from home began as COVID-19 took hold.
But use of the facility had somewhat rebounded with the needs of work from workers, travelers, and, often, entire teams looking for a short-term desk.
(Image: WeWork)
The four-year-old Kelly Springfield redevelopment is nearly entirely dedicated to the company’s use with the company taking on an ambitious lease to fill every floor of the preservation incentive boosted development built to “Class A” commercial real estate standards.
The project from property owner Legacy Commercial and architects at Ankrom Moisan created three stories of new offices over the old auto row-era structure. That building was once the neighborhood’s Value Village and before that, REI, and long before that, the Kelly Springfield Motor Truck Company. CHS reported here on the history and plans for the property in 2017 as the final designs for the project came together.
WeWork had plans to eventually have space for around 1,300 workers including the fourth floor dedicated to a workspace for Microsoft.
It isn’t clear from the bankruptcy filings what WeWork’s financial obligations for the property add up to but the debtor’s interest in the case nets out at $10.3 million against liabilities of $17.6 million.
Now, those floors of office space will be completely empty. Independent coworking and office spaces in the area include The Cloud Room above the Chophouse Row development.
The Kelly Springfield project, meanwhile, joins its neighbor the White Motor Company building in Capitol Hill office space limbo. Also owned by Legacy, the landmark-protected auto row-era building has remained without a tenant in its upper stories after The Stranger closed its offices there. In 2022, Legacy embarked on a major renovation and overhaul of the property. The office floors remain empty above neighborhood nightclub The Rhino Room.
What is next for the Kelly Springfield building’s ground floor where shoppers once dug through the racks at Value Village isn’t yet clear. Virtual sport company Five Iron Golf and Seattle rapper and links fan Macklemore opened a large, 12,000-square-foot golf bar with a dozen “custom-built” simulators “featuring multiple high-speed cameras to capture every angle of the golf swing,” and a restaurant and bar that promises “TVs at every turn” on the street level of the building in 2021. Its listings show tee times still available through the month.
King County appraises the Legacy-owned Kelly Springfield property at a value of $41.5 million.
$5 A MONTH TO HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE
🌈🐣🌼🌷🌱🌳🌾🍀🍃🦔🐇🐝🐑🌞🌻
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.
Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for $5 a month -- or choose your level of support 👍
Surprised it lasted even this long… Can this be converted into housing or a really cool club? Most people work remote nowadays and don’t need a shared office space like this. God what a scam this company was…
I WFH and liked using places like WeWork to get the fuck out of my 500 sqft apartment and I need more calm.than a cafe provides, and some businesses still need to meet with clients in person but don’t want to rent a full office, so shared office space can still be needed.
Not that I’m really defending WeWork, it was scummy and I think I only used it twice out of desperation and I could go in for just a day for like 35 bucks, but in general.
A scam? You’re nuts. WeWork was a godsend that filled a huge need in the community. Not all of us are blessed with office space. Some of us like putting on a clean shirt and getting out of the house during the day.
The number of people working remotely is exactly why spaces like these are useful, actually–I just got a new remote job & don’t have a big enough apartment to feel comfortable making it my workspace 24/7, so being able to set up in a place like WeWork can be really helpful. I actually did a tour of this location a couple of weeks ago because I wanted to rent out one of their dedicated desks but they wound up renting it out before I could sign up; the demand is definitely there.
The office market is going to be slow for a long time. Rather than let it sit vacant for years, I hope the owner will consider short-term, below-market leases to artists and arts organizations for at least some of this beautiful space in the creative heart of Capitol Hill.
Fantastic idea! Having artists and arts organizations in this space would be a perfect fit for the neighborhood. Maybe some pop up thrift and vintage shops too. Let’s keep that tech crap confined to SLU.
Arts & nonprofit offices would be awesome! Retail would be a lot harder, though; I’ve used this WeWork location a handful of times & the lobby is very much a basic lobby & wouldn’t be easy to convert to ground-level retail & the office spaces upstairs aren’t really well suited to it either.
+1
Also, how did it take this long? I thought WeWork went bankrupt before this building was even completed.
Good riddance! What a waste. Hopefully this space can actually be used for the community.
The people who used it (not enough of them to pay the rent I guess) weren’t from the community?
Uh, WeWork is the one who owed rent
sure, but the community used the space offered by WeWork
I’ve lived in an apartment on the Hill for 32 years, so I kinda feel like I’m part of the community. Are you one of those people who think you have to be born on the Hill to be a “real” Capitol Hillite? WeWork and Cloud Room are awesome places for people who want to work outside of their bedrooms.
ive been on and off cap hill for I dunno, about 26 years – i also use this wework – what community are you talking about?
Bring back Value Village!
Value Village is a scam, but I agree that a legit nonprofit thrift store would be an excellent use of that space.
Not since it was redeveloped, unfortunately. The only thing that remains from the old days is the facade of the building, the inside is very much Office Space and would take a lot of work to redo. My bet/hope is that another coworking company will try to take it over, but it’s a pretty massive space so who knows.
what a waste indeed. i just want to second jade pagoda’s suggestion of short-term, below-market leases to artists and arts organizations if not an outright housing conversion.
FYI the terms of their loans for the construction of the building are going to dictate that they need to hit a certain amount of income from the building, and its’ main use(s). Unless the bank wants to play ball on subsidizing artists or wants to finance a housing conversion, it’s more likely the owner sells the property or literally turns the keys in to the bank and defaults if they can’t find a new lessee.
I did a year of co-working at the Office Nomads space before they closed while doing some one-off consulting work. I get the benefits of having co-working space, but at the time WeWork was buying up all of the space in the city and charging insane rates while pitching access to amenities like kombucha, beer, and snacks… Not surprised that didn’t pan out and was honestly amazed at the time at how much buzz the company was getting when the most common service (hot desks) isn’t really much of an improvement over a library and yet still charged several hundred dollars per month.
DibDesk is still in the area, but hope we can see more of this and similar types of co-working spaces.
Are you sure DibDesk is still around? I’ve been looking for a new coworking space & that one never came up in my search but when googling it just now couldn’t find an active website.
I met someone there a few months ago, so its possible it’s closed since then.
dibdesk seems dead, only cloud room is left. It’s a nice space but so spendy.
This was one of my favorite WeWorks. They had a lot of social parties like Ice Cream Social and happy hours on the outdoor roof deck. Not sure where all the hip people will be working from now.