Seattle’s New Coworking Hotspot: A Peek Inside Centrl Office

Taking over the historic Kelly-Springfield Building in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, the Portland-based coworking startup Centrl Office has opened its first site in the city.

The 1917 building was refurbished and once housed Kelly Springfield Motor Truck Company, REI, WeWork and Value Village. The 53,000-square-foot coworking space and 17,000 square feet of standard leasing space are available on the fourth floor. Additionally, a sizable rooftop deck offers expansive views of the surrounding area and portions of the city. Five Iron Golf — a high-tech indoor golf experience — also opened its doors on the block below in 2022.

Centrl provides a range of options based on how individuals and groups wish to work, just like other coworking spaces. This includes coworking areas; facilities for meetings; offices that may be rented on a daily, weekly or monthly basis; and more. Notably, membership fees and costs differ. As businesses reduce their real estate footprints and adapt to workforces that have adopted remote and hybrid work methods, coworking is flourishing in Seattle.

Centrl co-founder Alex Hughes said: “People that we’re seeing are more collaborators, they’re needing office space, but they just need it à la carte, instead of renting a headquarters or a big team office. They don’t have to commit for 10 years. They’re just committing sometimes for month to month.”

Seven years old, Centrl is optimistic about the flex space market as more people and firms settle into how they assemble and work after the epidemic. Centrl has seven sites, including three in Portland and two in Los Angeles.

“We’ve seen a lot of groups that are in traditional space,” Hughes said. “As leases are ending, they’re starting to evaluate more flexible options.”

For more information on Centrl Office, visit https://centrloffice.com/.