WeWork Partners with Latch to Offer NYC Residents All Access Membership

Clearly, workers and management don’t see eye to eye on the virtues of ditching the couch for the office cubicle. Is there a third way? A familiar if egg-splattered face from a less contentious workspace era thinks so.

WeWork, which offers employees a way to return to the office without returning to the office, announced on Tuesday a partnership with Latch, which provides enterprise software to residential buildings. Under the arrangement, New York City residents of Latch buildings will receive a free subscription to WeWork’s all-access membership program. Smart homes. Shared office space. You get it.

The Third Rail of Office Politics

Latch, which began first as an app-controlled home-locking company in 2014 before expanding to all sorts of smart home and building management bells and whistles, rode the SPAC wave to a public listing in June of 2021, and it’s been downhill since. Its stock price, which hasn’t traded above $1.50 since early this summer, is down nearly 90% all-time.

At least with WeWork, Latch gets the benefit of a partner that for all its infamy still has brand-name appeal. And Latch residents get some fancy perks:

• Latch users in New York will earn a free All Access WeWork membership, which runs the typical customer $299 a month plus taxes and grants 24/7 access to all of WeWork’s hundreds of locations across the globe.
• The program will first be available to select Latch-connected New York City apartment building residents, before expanding across the city and — eventually, according to a press release — to Latch users worldwide.

Remote Control: The partnership comes just as the return-to-office battles are heating up. According to Bank of America’s newest Home Work survey, 43% of 30 to 40-year-olds said they were working from home for the majority of the work week in September, down from 55% in June. With summer over, and kids going back to school, perhaps management everywhere is wondering why parents can’t bring themselves to do the same.