Company Strategy: “Co-working Move Over, I Need A Breather”
As another disruptor in the office leasing market, Breather signed a 17,850-square-foot lease with GFP Real Estate for property in Chelsea.
NEW YORK CITY—Even with WeWork, Knotel, CBRE’s Hana, and Brookfield’s arrangements with Convene, yet another competitor is in the crowded pool of Manhattan’s non-traditional office lease marketplace. Breather, a flexible office space company founded in Montreal, signed a lease with GFP Real Estate, the Gural family’s firm. It’s for 17,850 square feet at 322 Eighth Ave. The company is occupying the third and 18th floors.
In early June 2019, they’ll be offering two offices and two meeting spaces in the building. Breather will give clients their own dedicated office space with the option to use on-demand additional meeting space in the same building. The technology platform allows landlords and tenants to access a real-time digital booking system that requires minimal maintenance or management. Tenants at 322 Eighth Ave. and businesses elsewhere can book the space.
Ramsey Feher of CBRE represented Breather and Allen Gurevich of GFP Real Estate represented the landlord.
Breather likes the Chelsea location, seeing it as a part of New York City’s tech community. The 21-story tower was constructed in 1925 by architects George & Edward Blum. Typical for buildings marketed to the tech sector, it underwent a modernization restoration while preserving historic features. Tenants include The Nature Conservancy, Juice Pharma Worldwide and Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects.
As to future plans, Breather’s director of real estate Jenny Hahn says, “The centrality of real estate to the startup success story is evidenced by the strong demand we’re seeing for our flexible workspace solutions that support agile growth, marking a clear path for Breather’s continued expansion and investment in larger footprints in major markets like New York, London and San Francisco.”
It distinguishes itself from co-working. Instead of an emphasis on collaborative, shared spaces, the company stresses its online access to a network of private, flexible workspaces that can be rented by the hour, day or month. Although Breather did not provide its total square footage of leased space, the company states it operates 500 private offices and meeting spaces in New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Washington, DC, Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Quebec.
A Breather spokesperson tells GlobeSt.com its month-to-month private offices cater to a largely underserved segment of businesses. She emphasizes these clients do not want to work in distracting, crowded co-working spaces. Nor do they want the financial commitment of a traditional long-term lease where there’s no flexibility to grow and move. The spokesperson says that Breather’s clients typically range from two to 100 employees.
However, larger enterprises like American Express, Tesla and Uber use Breather’s short-term meeting spaces for a variety of uses such as for off-sites teams, trainings or satellite office space, according to the spokesperson.
The company also emphasizes workplace experts and behavioral scientists, who consider acoustics, thermal comfort and natural light on productivity and employee wellbeing, work on the design of their spaces.
Breather was founded in 2012 by Julien Smith and Caterina Rizzi. In January 2019, the company appointed Bryan Murphy CEO, and Smith became chairman of the board. Murphy was the founder of mattress startup Tomorrow Sleep, a Serta Simmons company. Before that, he served on eBay’s leadership team following the sale of his company, WHI Solutions, an automotive e-commerce business, to eBay in 2012.
In June 2018, Breather raised approximately $45 million in funding led by Menlo Ventures with firms including la Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, Ascendas-Singbridge and Temasek.
How much of a splash will Breather make in New York waters?
Hahn tells GlobeSt.com, “Experts predict that at least 30% of all urban office space will be delivered as flexible space within the next five to 10 years. Today just 2% of all space in New York City is currently delivered this way. As more growing companies feel the effects of co-working fatigue, they will drive this shift by looking for new space solutions, like Breather, that balance their needs for privacy and flexibility.”
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