The third space (or place), is a term used in the concept of community building to refer to social surroundings separate from the two usual social environments of the home and the workplace.  In his influential book, The Great Good Place, Ray Oldenburg (1989, 1991) argues that third spaces are important for civil society, democracy, civic engagement and establishing feelings of a sense of place.

In an office, the third space can be defined as the place between the workstations or offices and formal meeting rooms.  The third space is used for more casual work or meetings.  The environment is more collaborative and less formal.  Furniture resembles a hotel lobby or cafe.  Expanded kitchens and break rooms can serve as the third space in the office environment.

Gen Y grew up studying in coffee shops and cafes instead of at libraries or desks.  As a result, some Gen Y prefer to work in more informal settings that resemble coffee shops.  They also prefer to collaborate on couches rather than around a formal meeting table.  Gen Y grew up not tethered to the personal computer, Gen Y grew up not tethered to the personal desktop computer.  They can now work away from their desks using laptops.  They can exercise their freedom even more by using their tablets and smartphones as well.  The third space allows for a change of pace and a change of scenery.

In this 8,100 square foot office suite renovation at 2644 30th Street in Santa Monica, adjacent to the Santa Monica Business Park, PMI has configured the spec suite with the third space in mind.

2644 30th Street Suite 101: Features include a blow out kitchen, causal areas, and outdoor space.  These all create opportunities for  “Third Spaces.”

The most common “third space” is the kitchen area.  Because of this, PMI aims to build large and inviting kitchen break areas that resemble cafes.  PMI integrates an adjacent area with similar flooring and lighting that can expand that kitchen into a casual work area, or another third space.  Tech companies tend to put these third spaces in the most desirable part of the office space.

In this case, the area near the outdoor patio would make an excellent additional casual work area.  With the great weather in Los Angeles, outdoor spaces also make great third space.  In a survey of ten creative office brokers in Los Angeles, 80% of them felt that outdoor space, if available, should be pre-built into the infrastructure of the space.  Growing companies also use third spaces as potential areas to temporarily expand formal work areas as the company scales.

Here are some examples of third spaces that PMI features in their suites:

PMI’s kitchen and break area for Ustream in San Francisco.

Ustream’s kitchen at 410 Townsend, San Francisco.

Ustream’s kitchen and break area overflows into an adjacent area to form a third space.

Ustream’s informal space next to the kitchen provides an excellent informal eating area.

Ustream’s couches next to the kitchen are used as a casual work area.

PMI’s casual work area for Yammer at 410 Townsend in SoMa.

Rows of couches facing each other with side coffee tables form a more casual work area in Yammer’s suite in San Francisco.

PMI’s third space work area at 4223 Glencoe in Marina Del Rey was created under a glass roll-up door, adjacent to the former loading dock.

Another PMI blow out kitchen at 3525 Eastham in Culver City.

The private outdoor deck at PMI’s 10951 Pico building serves as another third space.

Outdoor decks and patio areas are great for third spaces.

The area adjacent to a glass roll-up door makes an excellent area for a casual meeting area at 4223 Glencoe in Marina Del Rey.

This casual area is apart of an expanded kitchen, which increases the third space even more.

Designers are getting inventive in their creations of third space areas (410 Townsend, San Francisco).

Additional third space at 410 Townsend in San Francisco.

An informal meeting area as third space at 410 Townsend, San Francisco.

This is actually Peet’s Coffee in Los Angeles. It’s getting hard to tell the difference between cafes and third spaces in offices (with the exception of the piles of coffee).

To read more about third spaces, click here.

Los Angeles Startups by Representla.com

It is no surprise that Los Angels start-ups cluster along the Silicon Beach from MDR to Manhattan Beach.  Startups form a boot with the foot along the beach and shaft passing through Culver City, West Los Angeles,  Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Hollywood,  Downtown  and on to Pasadena.  Santa Monica has the great concentration of start ups and constitutes the heel of the boot.  They are not in the Valley, Glendale, Burbank, South Los Angeles, Northeast Los Angeles or East Los Angeles.

The prosperity of an area has been linked to breakout companies and technologies.  The newly minted multimillionaires break off and start new companies.  The company itself expands and also attracts other similar companies.  Snapchat may be Los Angeles’ first new break out company since MySpace and will greatly improve the ecosystem in Silicon Beach.

Facebook offered Snapchat $3 billion.

This new bike rental program is available in New York, San Francisco, and  Chicago.  As a member, one can take a bike from any station and return it to any other station in the City.  Stations are located all over town.  You pay an annual fee of approximately $99 per year and get the first 30 minutes for free and $4 per hour thereafter.  You only need get the bike back to a station not to incur the overtime charge.  For commuters within an easy 30 minute ride of their work, they can rent the bike at the train or subway  and ride it to another bike station near work.  After work, they can take the bike from the station back to a station near the train or subway.

Bikes may be another way to solve the problem on how to get from the Expo line to work and vice versa.

How about using a bike rack to carry a bike to work?  Find free parking somewhere near work and ride the bike the rest of the way to work.

Bikes Parked at One of Our Tenants

One of our tenants gives a free bike to any employee who agrees to ride a bike to work.  The company provides bike parking also.

In San Francisco, it is not uncommon for tenants to demand a shower in the building to use after a bike ride.  In fact, the zoning code requires that an office building provide a certain number of showers in the building depending on the buildings size.  Further, the code requires bike parking spaces.    In LA, we got a few of these shower requirements during the dot.com boom.   After the dot com boom, the replacement tenants wanted the showers taken out.  We just got our first request for a shower in a suite to accommodate bike commuters.

Warren Buffet

Your telling me.  It is  true in commercial real estate also.

‘We’re having a hard time finding things to buy’: Warren Buffett’s eternal lament.

A Lyft Driver’s Car

Los Angeles companies continue to densify and fit more employees into less space.  The problem is where to park these employees.  Planners are betting the farm on new forms of public transit to solve this problem  Even with public transit, the problem is how to get from the train or light rail station to the office.  There is still a lot of street parking in Los Angeles as well as under-utilized lots.  However, this  parking is not within acceptable walking distance.  In Los Angeles, if you cannot open your car door and fall into the front door, it is not an acceptable walk. To solve the problem, about 20 years ago, the cities mandated mandatory ride sharing programs.  Companies complained of the expense, and the rideshare legislation was rescinded.

Now social media and collaboration has produced another form of private ride sharing in companies like Lyft and Uber.   Lyft is  an iphone or adroid app you use to summon a driver and pay him a suggested donation.  I have been told that in Los Angeles, these donations can be less than two thirds of the price of a cab ride. You can see the available Lyfts near you on your smartphone and whether they are coming to get you.

Companies or landlords could contract with Lyft drivers to pick employees up from the Expo station or other areas with available parking and take the employees to work.  This process may end up being less expensive them hiring a valet or building additional parking spaces.  At $10 a day for rides back and forth to work from a nearby location–the Lyft would cost $200 per month.  OK, that is more expensive than most parking lots but not prohibitive.  Throw in some car pooling, and the price goes down.

Another alternative is for companies to do their own Lyft.  Designate those with parking as the drivers and the others as the passengers.  The passengers can send an alert out and a nearby driver can respond for a pickup on the way to the office. If no driver is available, the office can send out a designated driver for pickup.  Phone apps like instant messaging or Find My Friends or GPS Tracking can be used to facilitate pickup and logistics.

Fitbit

The Fibit is one of many social media wearable smart pedometers in the market today.  The Fitbit (like the Nike Fuelband and the Jawbone Up) tracks your steps, calories, miles, and aerobics.  You can share your results with friends also using the device and create a competitive environment.  Walking can burn calories.  You get almost  as much calorie burn per mile whether you run or walk, although you will  not get the same cardio benefits in a walk.  The Fitbit or these other devises try to get you addicted to walking.  The goal is at least 10,000 steps a day.  If you subtract 3,000 steps you would get anyway in daily living, you achieve about 7,000 extra steps.  That can equate to a little over 3 miles per day (equivalent to a half hour or more run for many).

Our office building at 10951 Pico Boulevard is a third of a mile from plentiful free  parking along the new Expo Line.  We can give employees who give up parking a Fitbit if they use the Expo Line parking.  Each day, the employees would get 1385 fit bit points (steps)  for a seven minute walk to and from work toward their 10,000 steps.  Thus, both the exercise and parking problems are solved.

Many buildings  will be at a competitive disadvantage because of their design. Further, changing office density (workers per square foot) is becoming a heavy drag on a stronger recovery in the office market.  Business are finding ways to fit more people into less space.  This is not your father’s recovery.  Companies are shrinking their per-employee square foot requirements while demanding more collaborative space. Even as tech and media companies hire, other companies continue to shed employees.   The net result is a slower office recovery than in previous cycles.  We have seen this manifest in continued high tenant improvements and free rent even in strong markets like the Santa Monica.  Business are demanding and getting the latest and greatest tenant improvements.  With vacancies still over 10% in most markets, Landlords are forced to comply or they comply to maximize contract rents.

In today’s Los Angeles Times (October 13), one broker explains:

One big reason this office market recovery is much slower than others is that many firms are packing more workers into less space.

The ho-hum recovery has hit downtown Los Angeles especially hard, said broker David Kutzer of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank. Law firms, banks and other corporate businesses have been cutting back on private offices and workers’ cube space. Open floor plans are becoming the norm.

“There is far less ‘me’ space and more ‘we’ space,” Kutzer said.

See:  Los Angeles Office Market’s Ho Hum Recovery

In Los Angeles and San Francisco, the market is driven by tech and/or media tenants who desire creative spaces.  These tenants want more power, flexible lease terms, open and high ceilings, less offices, more conference rooms, bigger kitchens, and non-corridor entries.   The new density is creating a special problem for Los Angeles office buildings.  Businesses now need parking that most buildings do not have.  Businesses now need more than 3 spaces per 1000 square feet as their density skyrockets above 4 employees per 1000. The success of Hackman’s Hayden Place and the Reserve and Hercules campuses  in Playa Vista can be attributable to their creative design and plentiful parking.

You can read the full article below.

How Will Older Office Buildings Compete in the New Workplace? – CoStar Group.

Who sits near who can be as important as the design of the office itself.  This article explores the importance of the seat chart.   However, the practice remains more of a judgement call than a science.  See the full article below.

The New Science of Who Sits Where at Work – WSJ.com.