33 Degrees Backs National Expansion of Thrive Coworking Sites

The joint venture formed last year by Hotel Equities and Virtua partners, known as 33 Degrees, has made a large bet that the coworking sector will increase its footprint to 30% of the office space market by 2030.

The 33 Degrees venture is bankrolling a rapid nationwide expansion of Georgia-based coworking player Thrive, which plans to add 500 new coworking locations, focusing on space in walkable, downtown areas.

Quinn Palomino, 33 Degrees’ board chairman, said Thrive has established the gold standard for hybrid coworking space at its three Georgia locations in Alpharetta, Milton and Canton.

Thrive specializes in the “convenience, amenities and culture” of the hybrid workforce that is developing in city centers, places where the ethos of live-where-you-work is taking hold.

“We support the standard Thrive is setting in the hybrid coworking space. Thrive creates not just a cool place to work but a community atmosphere to foster collaboration, an activities-focused lifestyle and a local economic engine,” Palomino said, in a statement.

The amount of 33 Degrees’ investment in Thrive’s expansion was not disclosed. The joint venture’s current portfolio encompasses 3.5M SF in properties across North America, with nearly $1B under management.

Thrive, which bills itself as “a powerful antidote to the Great Resignation,” is affiliated with a nonprofit that partners with local retailers to give members discounts on goods and services. 

According CBRE’s 2022 report on the flex-office sector, the sector contracted a bit during the pandemic after its best year in 2019 but is poised for solid growth as a new model that has become a go-to strategy for a growing number of companies embracing hybrid work strategies.

A CRBE survey of 185 US-based companies found that a majority of large companies anticipate adding more flex space to their office portfolios, with half of these large companies indicating that a significant percentage of their overall office footprint (more than 10%) would be flex-office space.

“Flex space has become a skeleton key that companies can use to address their changing office needs,” said Julie Whelan, CRBE’s Global Head of Occupier Research, in the report.

“They can use flex space to adjust their office portfolio as they figure out how hybrid work will affect their employees’ office-use patterns,” Whelan said.

“Some (companies) will add flex space in suburban locations to offer employees offices for occasional use closer to their homes. In short, flex space allows companies to be more nimble,” she added.