A flexible and industrial office space.
Courtesy: industrious
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A year ago, the commercial real estate giant CBRE acquired Industrious, a flexible office company that opened its first space in 2013 and saw impressive growth in the wake of the pandemic.
At the time, CBRE said in a statement that Industrious’ success was “the result of continued investment in understanding what constitutes a great workplace, coupled with continuous operational improvement.”
And it was a reasonable bet. By 2025, Industrious has increased its global footprint by 58% compared to 2024, with now more than 250 units open in more than 100 cities, according to the company. It forecasts 100% growth in new signings in 2026.
Industrious currently ranks third in its industry, in number of spaces and total square footage, behind International Workplace Group (owner of Regus) and WeWork.
The global flexible office market is poised to grow from a value of $54.59 billion in 2025 to $147.2 billion by 2033, according to SkyQuest.
While the traditional office sector is still slowly recovering from the pandemic and the new work-from-home culture, flexible office, which includes coworking spaces, is benefiting from this slow recovery. Big companies want people back in the office, but they’re also increasingly focused on the work experience of those who don’t work at headquarters.
“I would say the biggest thing driving this project is the desire for companies to try to bring their mid-sized and small offices up to the quality level of their corporate headquarters so that people don’t leave to go to a competitor, and they need help with that,” said Jamie Hodari, founder and CEO of Industrious. “It’s very difficult, even for JPMorgan or Google, to provide a truly beautiful and engaging office experience for 43 people.”
Hodari said there are big cities with too much office space, but there are also smaller cities and regions with too little space. This fits perfectly into the flexible office model.
“There are all these people who basically want to work close to home. They want to bike to work. They want to walk to work. They want to drive 5 minutes to work,” Hodari said.
Of Industrious’s last 50 workspace openings, a disproportionate number are in neighborhoods and not major central business districts.
Owners of Class B office buildings, where vacancy rates are still high, are also working to renovate their buildings to attract new tenants. Industrious can benefit from this simply because of its business model, which differs from that of other flexible office companies.
Instead of leasing entire buildings, Industrious acts more like a hotel management company. The company signs management contracts with owners to operate part of a building. Rather than paying monthly rent to the landlord, she shared the profits – but also the risks. This “asset-light” approach makes Industrious more resilient in an economic downturn because it is not tied to massive, long-term rent payments.
Industrious specializes in a more hospitality-focused environment, building spaces that feel more like boutique hotels than traditional offices. It also attracts a more varied tenant.
“There are a lot more people doing cool things in the building, and so landlords tell us all the time, ‘Hey, I have this whole building, let’s say it’s half leased, and I want to drive the rest. How can I make the lobby not look like no man’s land?'” said Anna Squires Levine, president of Industrious.
Industrious is clearly riding on better conditions in the office market right now, and Levine said she doesn’t see any consequences from the weak jobs reports. The risks associated with flexibility, however, can be outsized.
“It’s a sector that outperforms in good times and underperforms in bad times,” Hodari said. “So you’ll do better than long-term rental when things are good, and when you go into a recession or when something like Covid happens, long-term rental might go down 6% or 10% and flexibility might go down 25%.”