The second floor above a Cronulla Street retail strip doesn’t look like much from outside. But walk up the stairs and you’ll find 30 desks, three meeting rooms, and a growing community of Sutherland Shire professionals who’ve decided they’d rather work five minutes from the beach than commute to the CBD.

Coastal Workspace opened last month, and co-founder Melissa Chen says bookings have exceeded expectations.

“We thought we’d be slowly building up,” she said. “But we’re already at 60% capacity on most days. The demand was clearly there.”

The Remote Work Opportunity

The shift toward flexible work has been extensively documented. What’s less obvious is how it reshapes local commercial property and business districts.

Before 2020, remote-capable workers in Cronulla largely chose between working from home or commuting to city offices. Now there’s a middle option: professional workspace close to home.

“I was going crazy working from my apartment,” explained David Kang, a software developer who’s become a regular at Coastal Workspace. “But I couldn’t justify two hours commuting when my company only required me in the CBD office once a fortnight.”

The coworking space costs him about $400 per month for unlimited access. His employer provides a remote work stipend that covers most of it.

What the Space Offers

Coastal Workspace isn’t trying to compete with flashy CBD coworking brands. The fit-out is functional rather than Instagram-worthy: good desks, reliable internet, meeting rooms that can be booked by the hour.

What they are competing on is convenience. Free parking nearby. Walking distance to Cronulla’s cafes and the beach. A commute measured in minutes rather than hours.

“Our members aren’t looking for a corporate headquarters experience,” Chen said. “They want somewhere professional to take video calls and focus on work, without the overhead of an actual office and without the commute.”

The Local Business Angle

The coworking space has ripple effects for surrounding businesses. Members buy coffee from nearby cafes, grab lunch at local spots, maybe stay for a beer after work.

A Cronulla cafe owner near the space reported a noticeable uptick in weekday morning traffic since it opened. “We get a rush between 8 and 9 that we didn’t have before,” she said. “People grabbing coffee on the way to work—but their work is upstairs, not in the city.”

The Future of Suburban Work

Coastal Workspace isn’t the first coworking space in southern Sydney—Miranda and Sutherland have similar operations. But the model seems to be expanding.

Chen mentioned plans to potentially open a second location, possibly in Caringbah or Gymea, if the Cronulla space continues performing well.

“There are thousands of professionals in the Shire who could work from anywhere,” she said. “We’re betting a lot of them would rather work close to home.”

For local workers tired of the commute to Wynyard, it might be worth checking out what’s available closer to home.