(Bloomberg) -- Convene, which provides flexible meeting and working space, enlarged its midtown Manhattan footprint with its biggest lease ever, expanding a partnership with RXR Realty LLC and going after the small to medium-size tenant that industry leader WeWork Cos. has just begun to court. The New York-based startup has leased 116,000 square feet (nearly 11,000 square meters) of office space spanning four floors at RXR’s 530 Fifth Ave. The target is businesses with 10 to 100 employees. “This is mainly for companies looking for under 10,000 square feet that have outgrown a co-working environment but are not yet ready to commit to a long-term lease with a building owner,” Ryan Simonetti, co-founder and chief executive officer of Convene, said in an interview. “We feel that whole segment has really been forgotten about.” In August, Convene’s much larger rival announced the launch of HQ by WeWork for companies with 11 to 250 employees. Founded in 2009, Convene started out providing solely special-events and conference venues. It wasn’t until February that it offered a flexible-working-space option, which it branded WorkPlace, at Cove Property Group’s 101 Greenwich St. A second New York City site, at Brookfield Property Partners LP’s One Liberty Plaza, opens at the end of the year. The firm also announced the opening of its 20th location, 9,000 square feet across the 31st floor of RXR’s 75 Rockefeller Plaza. Eighty percent of 530 Fifth, which is set to debut in the second quarter, will be for WorkPlace members, Simonetti said. Convene itself started in a traditional co-working space, but “once you start getting over 10 people,” he said, “it’s really not the right solution any longer.” To contact the reporter on this story: Kristy Westgard in New York at kwestgard1@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Daniel Taub at dtaub@bloomberg.net, Peter Jeffrey, Dan Reichl ©2018 Bloomberg L.P.
Convene has signed a lease for 116,000 sq ft of space over four flours at RXR Realty's property in midtown Manhattan's Fifth Avenue. The company is the first to occupy the space, which was previously occupied by an office building that closed last year. Ryan Simonetti, co-founder and CEO of the company said it was a segment that has been forgotten about. Last month, WeWork announced the launch of HQ by WeWork aiming to serve the same segment.