WeWork is Spreading Across Canada with Three Locations Announced this Month

May 29, 2018

Communal working spaces are popping up all over the country, and one name seems to appear more than others.

WeWork is making strides when it comes to opening new locations in some of the biggest innovation hubs in Canada, with two new Vancouver locations and a new Toronto location all unveiled over the past 30 days. In March, the New York-based company said they would open 20 locations in Toronto by 2020—and it seems the coworking aficionados are dedicated to doing much more than that.

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

The new Toronto outpost is WeWork’s fourth in the city, meaning they’re 20 per cent through the goal of 20 locations. It will be located at 100 University Avenue in the heart of the Financial District and boast 875 desks as well as direct access to the subway system and Toronto’s underground PATH network.

The first Toronto WeWork was the company’s first to open at full capacity and spans 60,000 square feet, while the second is 35,000 square feet. The third has yet to open, and in total, there are close to 2,000 WeWork members in Toronto alone.

Vancouver currently has two WeWork locations that offer a combined 133,000 square feet of working space. A new location was announced at the beginning of May and it will span five floors of the Grant Thornton office tower at 333 Seymour Street. This new spot will add 1,100 desks and be open by September 2018.

The most recent WeWork Vancouver announcement is a 43,000 square foot space at 2015 Main Street in Mount Pleasant, covering two floors and opening in February 2019. The space will also be home to Vancouver tech darling Hootsuite.

This rapid expansion of coworking spaces is indicative of how quickly Canada’s tech ecosystem is taking off. Though WeWork is not solely dedicated to tech startups, it does feature quite a bit of them, and the coworking alternative is great for companies that scale quickly and do not want to sign long leases on office space they will outgrow.