If you’ve ever dreamt of a workspace that looks and feels like an Ikea showroom — because it kind of is an Ikea showroom — your chance is coming soon.
Downtown San Francisco’s forthcoming Ikea mall, set to open at 945 Market St., won’t be like the boundless labyrinths of furniture and meatballs you’ve come to expect from the Swedish company’s other locations. The much smaller space will be designed for its more urban locale and will include a co-working space on its top floor.
Ikea’s holding company Ingka Centres is developing the new mall, while its co-working space, named Hej!Workshop, is expected to be run by New York-based flexible workspace chain Industrious. The company already runs three other workspaces in downtown San Francisco, as well as one in Concord, one in Walnut Creek and another in Palo Alto.
A rendering of an office space inside downtown San Francisco’s forthcoming Hej!Workshop.
Industrious
Ingka Centres approached Industrious about developing a partnership to create San Francisco’s first Hej!Workshop, Industrious CEO and co-founder Jamie Hodari told SFGATE. Ingka Centres opened its first Hej!Workshop location in Stockholm last year. “When they approached us, we didn’t think twice. Actually, we really jumped at it,” Hodari said.
A rendering of an office space inside the Hej!Workshop opening at 945 Market St., San Francisco.
Industrious
Hodari said Industrious and Ingka Centre’s visions for the space are of a much sunnier office environment than what most workers are used to.
“A lot of office design over the last decade, or even the last 20 years, is skewed in the direction of dark and sexy and mid-century, and that’s fine. I think that can work well,” Hodari said. “But I think the vision here is for something very bright, maybe more irreverent, a little quirkier, a little more fun and happy than people would normally associate with workplace design.”
A rendering of a kitchen space at the new Hej!Workshop set to open on the top floor of 945 Market St., San Francisco.
Industrious
That quirky, irreverent vibe will be created through the use of Ikea furniture, as the company’s business interior design consultation service, Ikea For Business, is partially designing Hej!Workshop’s interior. At 46,470 square feet, the space will take up the six-story building’s entire top floor and will include private offices, office suites, meeting rooms, open workspaces and dining options, according to Industrious’s website.
It’s unclear when the Ikea store at 945 Market will open, but signs were seen being hung on the building’s facade in recent weeks. The company’s website currently lists 19 job openings in San Francisco, and electrical, plumbing and building permits have been filed with San Francisco’s Department of Building Inspection for the location.
signs for ikea being put up today!
by u/1jnh23 in sanfrancisco
The downtown mall will come with only 167 underground parking spaces, according to Ingka Centres’ website, instead of the colossal parking lots typically found outside of Ikea stores (the store’s closest location in Emeryville has acres of parking out front).
Among its other amenities, the new mall will include an “outdoor urban farm” complete with a hanging fruit and vegetable garden, according to a LinkedIn post made by Ingka Centres. The farm will be located in what is now the building’s basement-level parking garage.
The building’s second floor will come with a Swedish-themed food court, and the complex is expected to have other dining options as well, SFist reported. Members of the Hej!Workshop will receive free breakfast and snacks.
The building will also be staffed with around-the-clock security, the San Francisco Standard reported.
Hodari said he isn’t worried about opening a workspace in downtown San Francisco, which has seen one of the largest office worker exoduses in the country. In fact, he said that San Francisco is in the top third of U.S. cities for Industrious in terms of performance.
“Most of our San Francisco locations are full or close to full,” Hodari said. “This is a real golden era for flex office right now. There’s just an enormous number of people that don’t want to spend the next seven years working out of their living room.”
Prices at Hej!Workshop haven’t been determined yet, but memberships at its other San Francisco locations start at $399 a month. The workshop is set to open in early 2024, according to an Industrious press release shared with SFGATE.
