CHICAGO–The retail and co-working industries may very well see more deals such as the one Macerich inked with Industrious to bring its co-working platform to select malls in Macerich's portfolio. A new report by JLL finds that co-working space in retail properties will grow at a rate of 25% annually through 2023 reaching approximately 3.4 million square feet.

This stat JLL developed from what it says is the first ever survey of the inventory of existing and proposed co-working locations in retail properties across the US. The 75 locations it identified constituted over one million square feet of retail space.

The Synergies

Much of the study makes the case of why co-working is destined to meld with retail, or perhaps that is vice versa. Retail is still struggling to absorb empty space in power malls and neighborhood centers across the US. At the same time, they are maneuvering to change the mix of tenants to different use cases. Co-working providers, for their part, are increasingly integrating retail space as a perk for members, JLL noted, as it provides an additional revenue stream and elevates worker satisfaction. This relatively new model also works well in both urban and suburban areas — although the walkability of the co-working site is very important. But JLL found that slightly more than half, or 54.7% of co-working spaces in its research are in suburban locations.