February 6, 2021 In an S-1 filing ahead of its ill-fated IPO attempt, WeWork included a recession among its risk factors. What it didn’t anticipate was a pandemic. Over the past year, offices have shuttered around the world. Downtown centers became ghost towns, and revenue dropped sharply for coworking spaces as clients ditched short-term leases. In the second quarter of 2020, US flex office space leasing activity was down 45% year-over-year, according to a report from CBRE. Just this week, coworking space Knotel filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. But it’s not all bad news. Over months of Zoom calls and Slack check-ins, office workers have had plenty of time to mull what it would mean to go (back) to the office. And while demand for flexible space has fallen, commercial real estate analysts say the future for coworking looks bright—in part because big companies are now joining solo entrepreneurs in prizing office-space flexibility. Before the pandemic, commercial real estate firm JLL estimated that 30% of global offices would be on flexible terms by 2030. A year later, its prediction hasn’t changed.