Nextdoor aims to be the European leader in new collaborative workspaces

Thursday 17 August 2017 17:23
Bouygues Immobilier, the real estate development subsidiary of Bouygues Group, and AccorHotels, global leader in the hospitality sector, have created a 50/50 joint venture, with the aim of accelerating the growth of Nextdoor in France and Europe.

Nextdoor was created by Bouygues Immobilier in December 2014 to fulfil the evolving requirements of businesses, including increased flexibility and digitalisation, better quality of working life, and addressing professional mobility and the pursuit of new collaborations.

The "new workspaces" rolled out by Nextdoor provide an innovative real estate offer, a wide selection of services and solutions facilitating networking, and allow 24/7 accessibility. By the end of 2017, Nextdoor will operate 8 sites* in France and will have more than 4,000 clients.

The collaborative workspace market is booming. Within the next 5 years, flexible workspaces could represent 10 to 20% of office space in France, compared with 2% currently. To capitalize on this growth, Bouygues Immobilier and AccorHotels are combining their respective expertise with the goal of making Nextdoor the European leader in Business Hospitality, whose key challenges will be to secure the best locations and rapidly reach a critical size.

Bouygues Immobilier will contribute its knowledge of developments in business property usage and its relationships with key accounts and landlords, as well as its expertise in terms of site selection, real estate negotiations and urban engineering, in France and internationally.

AccorHotels will bring its unparalleled expertise in customer relations, hospitality and concierge services, and its experience of site operation in France and internationally. AccorHotels will utilise its distribution channels to help develop a new customer base for Nextdoor and accelerate the brand's growth. Finally, AccorHotels' guests will be able to benefit from an expanded range of services and unrivalled expertise in customized offers, given that the Group is already a world leader in private rental and concierge.

Together, the two groups aim to create 80 collaborative Nextdoor workspaces by 2022, at a development rate of 10 to 15 launches per year from 2018.

*Including Gare St Lazare, Gare de Lyon and Rue de Washington in Paris, Issy les Moulineaux, Neuilly sur Seine, La Defense just outside Paris and at Lyon Part Dieu.