Gold Coast high-rise takes working from home to whole new level

It’s clear that working from home is here to stay, but this new building is putting a fresh spin on the post-Covid push for work-life balance.

As Australia settles into its new normal post-Covid, it is clear that working from home is here to stay – but perhaps not as we know it.

A Gold Coast development is putting a spin on the new push for work-life balance with a dedicated coworking-from-home space built into its new high-rise apartment project.

The coworking space at Nineteen First Ave at Broadbeach. Picture: Supplied.

The 37-storey project, Nineteen First Ave at Broadbeach will feature an entire co-working floor complete with work suites, a boardroom, lounge, library, and outdoor entertaining space for functions.

NPA Projects, which is marketing the building, says Nineteen addresses the many issues raised since Covid-19 drove local urbanites and inter-state buyers to the Gold Coast and regional centres like it.

“Pre-Covid the gig economy was growing so rapidly, and it became exacerbated through Covid when people realised they can and, really, had to work from home,” NPA Projects marketing agent Andrew Erwin said.

He said Covid home offices “replaced walk-in laundries or bars” in terms of being essentials in building developments.

The building is 250m from the beach. Picture: Supplied.

And now that “people are choosing where they have their vocation” often outside of major cities, Mr Erwin said the Broadbeach project makes the home office “a little bigger and broader”.

“We are seeing an abundance of people buying a second dwelling, a second lifestyle on the Gold Coast. So when you look at a site like Broadbeach, it’s a live, work and play suburb … now it has a live, work and play building,” he said.

The coworking space slots in with 33 full-floor apartments starting from $2.995m. Nineteen also features a pool, spar and wet deck, gym, sauna, steam room and yoga space as well as an outdoor BBQ and dining area.

The pool area. Picture: Supplied.

The BBQ area. Picture: Supplied.

It also has a two-level penthouse with four bedrooms, private plunge pool, sunken lounge and fire pit.

The 33 three-bedroom apartments have “house like” proportions across 280sq m and are big enough, Mr Erwin said, to fit a home office – and some already do.

“But people want community,” he added.

“There’s no point sitting at a laptop with a view. That might be great for a weekend, but people want balance. They want to meet people, they want to bring in that feeling that you’re at a WeWork (coworking space), and this is it.”

The living area of an apartment in Nineteen First Ave at Broadbeach. Picture: Supplied.

An Australian study from 2020 found 84 per cent of employees missed the social connection and face-to-face interactions from being in an office when working from home.

But an international 2022 Social Connection in Remote Work Research Study found that more than 6 in 10 respondents found working from a third spare like a coworking site more socially fulfilling than working from an office (64 per cent) or from home (67 per cent).

One reason the survey found was that coworking spaces offer not only flexibility in location, but the people they work with.

Mr Erwin said the work from home floor has “all the creativity, opulence, and practicality of a city-styled workplace, it just happens to be in your building so your commute is literally just a trip down the lifts”.

Nineteen First Ave will be developed by Goal Coast local Ayrton Mansi from Amansi Projects and built by Descon. Construction is set to start this year, and finish in late 2024.