Oct 2, 2018 4 min read

Dave Herman was a quarterback in high school, and an accomplished one. He led Keystone Oaks to one of its few playoff berths in the 1980s en route to securing a football scholarship to Wake Forest University.

More than 30 years later, he runs a small financial services company bearing his name. It operated out of Green Tree until early September, when he executed an option play – and is now calling signals in Washington County.

Dave Herman & Associates has relocated to the co-working loft offices and suites at Street at the Meadows, the burgeoning mixed-use complex off Racetrack Road in North Strabane Township. His firm shares a lease on a suite with the Moeves Group, an insurance/financial organization. The two operate in an environment that is smaller and more casual than the standard office, and Herman is enamored of it.

“This has allowed us to get a suite with a functional area, in a convenient location that is brand new,” says Herman, who resides in the South Hills and now has quick access from work to Interstate 79 and Route 19. “There’s kind of a retail feel here that suits what we do.”

Herman & Associates is functioning in a workspace dynamic that is gaining global popularity. Co-working spaces are becoming a more common domain among small businesses, offering relaxed atmospheres with individual or small-group seating, standing desks, private offices and even a cafe. In many ways, they are polar opposites to traditional corporate multi-office spaces – and are less costly to rent.

“You can get a suite and an office, a suite and a work space, whatever you want. This gives people a lot of flexibility,” says Mike Swisher, principal for the Horizon Properties Group, which owns and manages the Street at the Meadows co-working spaces that opened in July. Horizon has similar units in other locations across the region, and plans to erect more.

“Our typical user does not come into an office every day,” Swisher says. “The real trend is people going away from the traditional riding up the elevator and going into your box for the day. Another thing is that corporations are finding this to be a less-expensive alternative for employees. You could sign a lease one day and come in the next day and work.”

He describes the mindset behind these spaces as “resi-tecture,” elaborating that “we try to bring residential elements here, so (the work environment) is less commercial.”

Technology there is paramount. Swisher says doors leading to co-working areas are locked, but workers enter via smartphone, which is where lessees receive billing and payment notices. Users may enter any hour of the day, and although there are no paid security personnel on site, an attendant is on call. There also is an abundance of cameras inside.

“We’re finding that people want a good place to work, with technology and security,” Swisher says. “What we do is unique and very new to the Pittsburgh area. We’ve invested a lot in making technology work.”

Co-working, he adds, “has been around for a while – they were called corporate suites then.”

He says WeWork and Regus are two major players in the co-working world, and are involved in “more complicated situations than we have.” But Horizon is establishing itself in this realm, at least locally.

Street at the Meadows is not the group’s first co-working endeavor. It launched spaces in two Southpointe locations in February 2017 – 17 offices in five suites on Main Street, and 17 in five suites in the Embassy Building, where Waynesburg University has a campus. Swisher says those offices are fully leased.

Horizon, he adds, is constructing co-working spaces at Evergreene Technology Park outside Waynesburg, and in Morgantown, W.Va. – with the latter to be essentially a mini-convention center for meetings. The spaces at both locations are targeted to open around Thanksgiving.

“We’ll probably continue to expand in this area,” Swisher says, pointing out that Horizon is considering loft offices in hotels it owns in Harmar Township and Grove City.

As of mid-September, seven of 12 co-working offices were available at the Street. Both suites had been fully leased. Two oil and gas companies, not surprisingly, are among the tenants.

Street at the Meadows has developed into an appealing mix of retail, restaurant and residential offerings in recent years. The addition of loft offices is now enhancing that diversity, and the working environment.