WeWork is Aiming to Open 20 Locations in Toronto by 2020

March 12, 2018

A city with booming business will often find itself with a high demand for working space.

WeWork is looking to supply that demand with more locations in Toronto—18 more, to be exact.

The co-working company is planning to have 20 total WeWork locations in Toronto by the end of 2020 according to reports. This represents a massive surge from the two that are currently opened and the other one that has already been announced.

“The bottom line is, we don’t see any limit to demand,” Dave McLaughlin, WeWork’s general manager for the Northeast, told Bloomberg. “We’re definitely setting our sights high for the city and we think it is an amazing ecosystem for business.”

There are currently two open WeWork locations in Toronto. One is a giant six-storey 60,000 square-foot building that was actually the first ever WeWork location (out of 225-plus) to open at full tenant capacity. Companies like Feedback, RBC and Techstars operate out of the location.

The recently-opened second location is spread over two floors and 35,000 square feet. Companies such as Upchain and Manulife call the location home. It opened at 98 per cent capacity, proving there is definitely a demand for more locations.

One other location has been announced so far, and that is slated to open at One University. WeWork has more than 1,700 members in the city and 200,000 worldwide, and the total investment into Toronto tops $20 million.

WeWork is hoping to take advantage of both the low office vacancy rates in major cities as well as growing co-working trends, fuelled by more companies allowing employees to work from home or on flexible schedules.

CBRE found that office vacancy rates hit record lows in Toronto in the middle of 2017, due to the rapid expansion of many companies growing from a dozen employees to well over 100. The vacancy rate is below four per cent, according to the CBRE.

Toronto was actually the second city in Canada for WeWork to expand into—Montreal came first in 2016. The six-floor location was supposed to open at the same time, but WeWork had difficulties with zoning and other regulations, forcing them to open their first Toronto outpost in fall 2017.