Driving success for Hines’ flexible workspace platform, The Square
When deciding to launch and deliver their flexible workspace proposition, The Square, Hines needed a technology and software partner that could help them realize their ambitions. They needed to cater to the requirements of their tenants – everything from small and medium size businesses to large enterprises – and needed an efficient way to run their flexible operation.
“Wherever there’s The Square, we’re going to use essensys. That’s a no brainer.”
Annie Draper
Director, Workplace Services
Background
Two Houston towers. One modern flexible-workspace proposition.
717 Texas is a 33 storey Class A office tower in the theatre district of Houston. The building was developed by Hines and designed by HOK, and was completed in 2003.
In 2020, Hines completed a modernisation of the tower so that it would fit in with their ethos of delivering best-in-class, high calibre buildings. Repositioning was an effective way for Hines to add more amenity space to the building and bring it up to what the expectations are of tenants today – something that’s evolved a lot since 2003 when the tower was built.
“How can we create something that’s much more meaningful in the building? In 2003 tenants would sign 10 year terms, 12 year terms.”
Texas Tower is the newest office tower to be built in downtown Houston. It’s a 47 storey, 1 million square foot tower, developed by Hines and Ivanhoe Cambridge, and designed by renowned architects Pelli Clarke & Partners.
The Square has been a hit at Texas Tower, receiving high utilisation rates from tenants in the building, confirming Hines’ hypothesis that more flexible space with better amenities would act as a leasing tool.
Hines × essensys
Technology that keeps pace with every tenant.
When deciding to launch and deliver their flexible workspace proposition, The Square, Hines needed a technology and software partner that could help them realise their ambitions. They needed to cater to the requirements of their tenants – everything from small and medium size businesses to large enterprises – and needed an efficient way to run their flexible operation.
This included:
- Streamlined operations
- Enterprise-grade security
- Control & speed
Hines chose essensys as a key partner for both 717 Texas and Texas Tower. essensys software powers The Square in both of these locations.
The result
2.5×
rent premium achieved on Hines’ flex product since opening The Square and working with essensys.
Simple operations. Secure roaming. Measurable business value.
essensys software & technology has enabled Hines to run their flexible workspace platform smoothly and efficiently.
Community Managers and Property Managers at The Square are able to work with members to deliver and provision their digital requirements on-demand and in real-time, without any technical knowledge. They can provision digital resources, such as secure WiFi or bandwidth, to occupiers quickly and easily – and don’t need to wait for a team of engineers to configure moves, adds and changes.
“The provisioning is just really easy for our teams to use.”
Members of The Square get a great connected experience that’s reliable, fast and secure.
Members can roam between 717 Texas and Texas Tower without having to log in to the WiFi again, thanks to essensys’ global private network. This provides a seamless experience for The Square members who want to utilize the facilities of both locations.
“In a normal situation you have Building A and Building B that are siloed and don’t touch each other and you can’t use them. But we can create a network effect.”
Hines sees essensys as adding real business value to their flexible workspace offering. Since opening The Square and working with essensys, Hines has been able to achieve a rent premium of up to 2.5x on their flex product. At the same time, they’re able to help reduce the cost of occupancy for their tenants who utilize The Square as ‘overflow’ space. Companies can reduce their real estate footprint in line with the increase in hybrid work and use the flex space as and when required during higher footfall periods.
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