Common Desk expands lease at Houston’s the Ion

The deal will add an additional 28,000 square feet of space to the coworking firm’s biggest Texas footprint

From left: The Ion's Jan E. Odegard, Common Desk's Nick Clark and The Ion Houston (Getty, The Ion Houston, LinkedIn/Jan E. Odegard, Common Desk, Google Maps)
From left: The Ion's Jan E. Odegard, Common Desk's Nick Clark and The Ion Houston (Getty, The Ion Houston, LinkedIn/Jan E. Odegard, Common Desk, Google Maps)

Texas-based WeWork subsidiary Common Desk is expanding its largest co-working footprint in Texas through a partnership with one of Houston’s most prominent business innovators.

Rice University affiliate Rice Management Company and the Ion, an office building also owned by Rice, have expanded their partnership with Common Desk. The deal includes an additional 28,000 square feet on Ion’s fourth floor. The co-working company now operates 86,400 square feet of flexible office space at the Ion, almost a third of the 266,000-square-foot building.

BP Ventures, Dow, Houston Freedmen’s Town Conservancy, Haliburton, HX Venture Fund, Capital Factory, BikeHouston, and SLB Innovation Factori are among the names that have taken up coworking desks at the Ion.

The Ion reached full occupancy in just less than one year from opening in August 2021, and it’s become a hub of Houston’s startup environment.

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“Accessible design, flexible office solutions, and extensive amenities, like an in-house Fiction Coffee bar and conference rooms, make returning to the office more attractive,” a media release about the deal states. “But what distinguishes this space from other flexible work spaces is proximity to the Ion’s roster of world-leading innovators Chevron Technology Ventures, NASA, Microsoft, Houston Methodist …”

Common Desk is also looking to expand its footprint in other Texas markets, most recently announcing a new space in San Antonio that began construction in November.

Although Houston is among the Texas metros that are leading national return-to-office ratios, co-working and flex space are still very much in high demand for Houston especially, and the need has only grown over the course of the year.

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