Workbar featured in Design:Retail Magazine

Bergmeyer recently collaborated with Staples and Workbar to bring their new strategic partnership to life. With both firms serving the needs of businesses, they partnered to incorporate Workbar’s co-working spaces within the retail footprint of Staples’ suburban stores. Check out this exciting new space!

Cowork Meets “Coretail”

Collaboration has been a business buzzword for some time now, and – at its best – it results in innovation and out-of-the-box thinking that promotes business growth. The strategic partnership between Staple Inc. and Workbar is an example of just that – a collaborative effort that creates differentiation and provides an innovative experience while expanding both companies’ reach by cross-pollinating their customer bases.

Office supplies retailer Staples was looking for ways to expand its range of business services specifically to one of its core customers: small business professionals. Workbar – a coworking office environment that offers independent professionals, entrepreneurs, small businesses, startups, remote teams and other mobile professionals a mix of comfortable work and meeting space and amenities – wanted to increase its member benefits by offering locations in the suburbs of Boston. With the help of Boston-based Bergmeyer, Workbar at Staples now offers an inspiring office environment in the heart of three Staples stores.

“We’re always looking for ways to support and enhance productivity for our customers, and teaming up with Workbar allows us to provide a collaborative, convenient environment where business people can make their workdays more productive and enjoyable,” says Peter Scala, executive vice president-merchandising, Staples.

The Workbar at Staples locations in Danvers, Norwood and Brighton (pictured) are custom-designed facilities, ranging from approximately 2,500 sq. ft. to 3,500 sq. ft. The Café is the hub and central point of the office interior, surrounded by a variety of work environments and conferencing spaces with varying levels of privacy. The views to the retail floor activate the space by providing a visual that adds vibrancy to the experience.

“The space needed to be disruptive, compelling, animated, efficient, comfortable yet compatible with the Staples big-box environment,” says Rachel Zsembery, vice president and principal at Bergmeyer. “Visually connecting the Workbar Café, the heart and social hub of the work space, to the Staples retail environment was a key design element in ensuring that both Staples customers and Workbar members understood the mutually beneficial relationship between the two businesses.”

The Staples-Workbar partnership demonstrates the power of collaboration, how innovation achieves differentiation and the business growth that can be accomplished when companies work together to forge unexpected connections that create unique experiences and foster success.

Read more from the October issue of Design:Retail here!