Avison Young Inc. will soon have a new downtown home, complete with a hybrid design for a post-Covid world.

The brokerage has signed an 11-year lease that starts in February for 9,647 square feet at Figueroa at Wilshire.

The lease is for the 44th floor of the Brookfield Properties-owned building, which is located at 601 S. Figueroa St. Avison Young currently has an office nearby at 555 Flower St.

Canada-based Avison Young said the new space is one of the firm’s first offices with a hybrid workplace design.

Chris Cooper, a principal and managing director of Southern California, said that while the firm’s office size is being reduced from 13,105 square feet to 9,647 square feet, it would hold more employees.

“Our human body occupancy is going up,” he said. “But we’re getting more efficient and have designed the space with the understanding that in the post-Covid era, people are going to come and go. We don’t always expect everybody to be in the office at the same time.”

Cooper said the company is doing a “complete redesign” before it moves into the space.

“From a conceptual perspective, we’re going from a traditional desk and perimeter office and workstation model to a multi-dimensional, multiuse, live-work-play environment. The space will accommodate a multitude of different uses depending on what the professional required uses for the days are. We are migrating, as are many, into much more of a hybrid model,” Cooper said.

He added that the firm decided to move to the new space rather than remain in its current office because of the amount of construction that would have to be done to get the new look the company was going for.

“That takes a significant amount of construction, and we found that it’s easier to just go with a new start, reduce the amount of interruption and disruption of living through that kind of construction,” Cooper said.
 
“And we were looking for an opportunity to rebrand Avison Young into our new branding standards and felt the new Figueroa at Wilshire building allowed us to do that,” he added.

The hybrid design focuses on spaces having multiple uses. For example, it has huddle or break-out rooms, and conference rooms will be able to be converted into smaller meeting rooms or enlarged to client event centers.
 
The space will still have some private offices, but they will be located in the interior rather than the exterior to allow for more natural light. There will be seating along the perimeter instead.

“Avison Young was a perfect fit for Figueroa at Wilshire as it shares in our pursuit of quality firms seeking best-in-class operations and a commitment to an amenity-rich, forward-looking workplace,” John Barganski, senior vice president of leasing at Brookfield Properties, said in a statement.

Avison Young’s Cooper, as well as Principal Jonathan Larsen, Senior Vice President Luke Eskigian and Principal Rick Ybarra are part of the team behind the new office space.

IA Interior Architects, based in San Francisco, is the design consultant for the project.
“Our design team has been focused on truly understanding how our Avison Young employees work, collaborate and leverage technology to deliver services to our clients,” Larsen said in a statement.
 
Cooper said demand for this kind of space is not only here because of the pandemic.
“It’s not like we had this epiphany during Covid. People had been talking about it but not really doing anything about it before,” he said.