Kafnu opens the way for mixed accommodation and work spaces
A new chapter in Australia’s evolving hotel scene is set to begin in December with the launch of Australia’s first co-working space with integrated hotel accommodation.
Kafnu in Sydney’s Alexandria will take up two levels within a three-storey building in business estate The Mill, housing 16 hotel rooms, co-working spaces, seven meeting rooms and private offices.
Other amenities include a gin and local craft beer bar, a virtual fitness studio, a media production studio, meditation room, phone booths, kitchen area and an events space in the atrium.
Kafnu Alexandria’s general manager Simon Hall said the idea to include an accommodation element “blurs the lines between a hotel and a workspace”.
The 18-square-metre rooms within the club have “the best elements of a well-appointed boutique hotel”. However, don’t expect all the traditional facilities, as the rooms don’t include tea or coffee making facilities.
“We’re not doing just co-working, we’re doing a private members’ club where you can go work in, socialise and collaborate with other members, so we’re not setting ourselves into that space because a slightly different person’s going to join here [compared with someone] who’s going to join just a co-working space, for example,” he told Commercial Real Estate.
“What Kafnu’s doing that’s really different to traditional co-working spaces is creating a private members’ club first and foremost that’s for a specific market of the new generation of creators… called hyphenates; these are people with multiple interests, they want to explore, they want to discover, they want to grow themselves.”
Kafnu’s parent company, Singapore-based Next Story Group, already operates 25 hotels and motels across NSW, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia, and is looking at establishing more Kafnu properties in key cities in Australia, according to Hall.
Sheridan Randall, 28th November 2018
