With an office vacancy rate at about 20 percent in the United States, according to Cushman & Wakefield, downtown business districts are trying whatever they can to get workers back — including resort-like work spaces that match or surpass the comfort of their homes.
The concept comes from “the image of a resort, of a beautiful location or a beautiful building, something that makes you say, ‘I want to see this experience, I want to be there,’” said Matthias Hollwich, founding principal of the global design firm HWKN who is designing a work resort complex, Sky Island at Canada Water, in London. “It’s not like home. It’s not like the other office buildings. It’s novel.”
“So many people go into the office and say, ‘Why am I here? I could do exactly the same thing at home,’” he added. “So you have to offer something that is better, but it’s not about making it entertaining like a club. People still want to go to work to be efficient.”
Mr. Hollwich’s Sky Island at Canada Water is a 350,000-square-foot complex that is expected to break ground next spring and will be between downtown and Canary Wharf. Sky Island will include two office buildings as well as an open market square with stalls offering food, drinks, music and entertainment. There will be a “laptop bar,” and other communal and individual work spaces, according to Mr. Hollwich, who said he coined the term work resort.
Terraces on its upper floors are meant to encourage outdoor meetings, as will the boat they plan to keep near Canada Water Dock. The top floor will be dedicated to “relaxation and socializing,” Mr. Hollwich said, and feature a saltwater therapy spa. For the commute home, kayaks and bicycles can be rented.
Companies have over the years improved their spaces in the hopes of getting more out of employees. In the 1870s, the Larkin Soap Company in Buffalo, N.Y., featured airy, light-filled interior lunchrooms, a bathhouse, hospital clinics and a gym. The Connecticut General Insurance Company building in Bloomfield, Conn., completed in 1957, had a small-format Lord & Taylor department store, bowling alley and hair salon. And Silicon Valley tech companies have campuses with video game lounges and volleyball courts.
