Industrious to open co-working space in Carmel’s Holland & Playfair building

Industrious, a New York-based co-working and flex office space provider, plans to open a second central Indiana location in Carmel City Center’s newest building.

The 27,000-square-foot space is earmarked for the first floor of the Holland & Playfair Building, currently under construction at 880 Monon Green Blvd. It’s expected to open by the second quarter of next year.

Industrious provides companies, remote workers and freelancers with shared workspaces, dedicated offices and wraparound amenities with month-to-month leases.

Kat Lau, Industrious’ vice president of real estate, said the Carmel location will be split roughly evenly between dedicated office space and common areas. It will feature a variety of meeting rooms, phone rooms, a WiFi-enabled outdoor patio and courtyard workspace, conference amenities and more.

“We’ve seen quite a bit of inbound interest already, from large companies,” Lau said.

Industrious opened its first Indianapolis location in 2017, when it struck a deal with Gershman Partners to occupy 18,000 square feet over two floors in the developer’s Marietta building at 350 Massachusetts Ave. Current members at that location include commercial real estate adviser Newmark Knight Frank, environmental consulting firm CLEAResult and technology service provider WorldWide Technologies.

“It has exceeded our initial pro formas, in terms of occupancy and price,” Lau said. “It has done better than we initially projected. The location, for most of last year and 2018, was quite stabilized. While leasing has in many ways stalled from the traditional perspective, we continue to see demand and sales during the pandemic.”

Corey Chambliss, director of communications for Industrious, said the firm has announced over 150,000-square-feet of new space since May. The driving force behind that growth is its practice of sharing revenue from its tenants with the building owner, instead of signing a traditional lease deal with the owner of the space.

In this instance, Industrious entered into an agreement with Carmel-based Pedcor Cos., the developer of Carmel City Center, to share revenue from members.

Melissa Averitt, executive vice president of Pedcor Cos., said she believes the services Industrious provides will continue to be in demand, despite current uncertainties about the longevity of working from home.

“There’s demand for co-working, flex-type space. Our confidence and beliefs in the area aligned on that and made us comfortable moving forward,” Averitt said. “Of course, this project won’t open until spring 2021 when we’re hopefully on the other side of the pandemic, but even during these times, we’ve completed 10,000 to 15,000 square feet of deals.”

Industrious will be the only tenant in the base of the Holland & Playfair building. The remainder of the building’s first floor will house leasing offices and amenities for apartment tenants in the upper four floors.

Construction on the $25 million project started one year ago and is expected to be complete by next March.

According to Industrious’ website, members have the option to choose from private offices serving up to 12 workers, suites with room for 24 or Industrious’ Canvas office space with room for as many as 200 employees.

Industrious President Justin Stewart co-founded the company in 2013 with Jamie Hodari. The company has nearly 100 locations in more than 50 cities in several states across the nation, including Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, California, and New York.