Despite the office sector’s troubles, the number of coworking spaces in Chicago continues to rise. According to the latest research from CoworkingCafe, Chicago was home to 243 coworking spaces at the end of the second quarter of this year.
That ranks fifth in the nation and is a slight increase from the 235 coworking spaces Chicago boasted as of the end of the first quarter.
The only cities with more coworking spaces than Chicago were Los Angeles, which ranked first with 279 coworking spaces as of the end of the second quarter; Dallas-Fort Worth, with 271; Manhattan, with 264; and Washington, D.C., with 258.
Other cities of note include Houston, which ranked eighth with 222 coworking spaces in the second quarter, and Minneapolis-St. Paul, which ranked 19th with 98 spaces. Nashville came in at 21 with 90 coworking spaces, while Austin ranked 22nd with 82.
The most significant rises in coworking space in the second quarter were seen in Indianapolis, where the stock of coworking spaces rose by 9% when compared to the first quarter and Nashville, where the number of coworking spaces increased by 8%.
Chicago is a leader when it comes to total coworking square footage, too. According to CoworkingCafe, Chicago ranked third in the country with a total of 6.33 million square feet of coworking space at the end of the second quarter, up from 6.1 million square feet in the first quarter.
Only Manhattan and Los Angeles outranked Chicago in coworking space square footage. Dallas-Fort Worth ranked fifth with 5.37 million square feet of coworking space as of the end of the second quarter, while Houston ranked seventh with 4.38 million square feet.
The top coworking operators in the U.S. market remained the same as they were in the first quarter of 2024: Regus, WeWork, Industrious, Spaces and HQ. All of them logged the highest numbers of coworking spaces both on a national level and within the top 25 markets analyzed by CoworkingCafe.
“As workers’ relationship with the office continues to evolve, individuals and corporations have agreed that there is a need for flexibility within a company’s space footprint,” said Peter Kolaczynski, director of data and research with Commercial Edge. “As this demand further ingrains itself in the marketplace, the demand will be met by operators.”
