Coworking specialist unveils plans for a bigger slice of Leeds space at former Pizza Express

Plans have been unveiled for the transformation of a former pizza restaurant into a new Leeds coworking space.

Spacemade, a creator and operator of flexible workspaces, has announced that it will transform the former Pizza Express unit at Park House.

The company, which already operates 16,000 sq ft of office space in the building, will further develop the site’s coworking offering, with the new workspace set to open in July this year.

Jonathan Rosenblatt, co-founder at Spacemade, commented: “A flexible and fully customisable coworking space will give a new lease of life to this former restaurant.

“Non-essential retail and hospitality have suffered particularly hard during Covid-19. Rather than letting disused sites become blank spaces in our cities and towns, many landlords are looking at change of use and bringing these spaces back to life with coworking.

“This is a trend that will come through increasingly in the next 12 months.

“We are currently working with several other building owners to explore options for converting former retail and hospitality spaces into next-generation flexible offices.”

Richard Hatter of Epsilon Real Estate, owner of Park House, said: “We set out to reposition the building to match future working patterns as demand for flexible space has continued to grow, particularly in prime city centre locations.

“We believe it offers enormous potential to become a leading coworking hub in the heart of Leeds.

“However, rather than lease the space to a traditional operator we wanted to build the infrastructure ourselves and retain a working knowledge of the operations inside the building.

“Spacemade was the natural partner to achieve this and their platform, together with the team’s sound market knowledge, has helped us to create a new and exciting proposition that delivers the perfect mix of amenity and space provision.”