German Co-Living Brand Hires Pret A Manger Exec To Guide Ambitious U.S. Expansion

[Pedestrian]

September 25, 2018
Ethan Rothstein, East Coast Editor

A co-living company with dozens of locations in Europe and three in the United States plans to open in "every major U.S. city" within the next two years, and has hired a retail veteran to help do it.

Medici Living Group hired (former ZPret-A-Manger CEO Mark) Smith to open more locations of Quarters, which the Berlin-based co-living company launched in New York City last year. There are now two on Manhattan's Lower East Side and a 75-unit, 175-bed location in Chicago's Fulton Market. By next year, Smith told Bisnow, he expects to announce a location every month. "It’s quite the aspiration," he said. "We are working on deals in San Francisco, Chicago, New York, D.C., we’ve got Philadelphia and we are looking at things in Miami ... We are trying to hit all the major cities, as well as some secondary cities."

Quarters master leases apartment buildings from developers, which Smith said has been the key to unlocking the hundreds of negotiations his team is currently going through across the country. Rather than serve as an ostensible property manager while rent goes directly to the building's owner, Quarters serves as a risk mitigator. Residents sign a lease as short as three months and pay a flat rate that tends to be below market for the trendy neighborhoods Quarters occupies, and they get matched up with suite-mates and rent fully furnished, small apartments . . . .

https://www.bisnow.com/national/news...l_morningbrief