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Colette is a new members-only co-working space that Bloomberg has aptly dubbed a "WeWork for the .01 percent" given its extraordinary initiation fee of $125,000, plus $36,000 in annual dues for every subsequent year. Clearly, the city has lost its mind.
Scheduled to open in March on the 37th floor of the General Motors building at 767 Fifth Avenue by 59th Street, the space is the brainchild of Edmond Safra and restaurateur Juan Santa Cruz.
What will that staggering price tag afford you in addition to beautiful views of Central Park? For starters, access to 23 different 400-square-foot private offices with conference desks, individual light and temperature controls, conference and meeting rooms and, according to the New York Post, "a members lounge and uniformed staff who bring coffee and snacks and serve as support staff." The building will also be home to a members-only restaurant called Coco's, an omakase concept.
If this all sounds insane, you're not wrong... and you should keep in mind that the club is not necessarily for common mortal New Yorkers.
According to Bloomberg, the space is "aimed at the itinerant, global rich who have second homes in New York or perhaps even live in the city but don't need a full-time office."
Speaking to the outlet on the record, Santa Cruz explains: "The world has been evolving for quite some time and the pandemic has made it more evident that people do not use their offices as much as they think they do, or wish they did. Why don't we develop a co-working club, at the highest level, for people who are used to having an amazing office?" Mission accomplished, it seems.
As if Colette's price tag wasn't prohibitive enough, the club will cap off the number of members at 300 to start things off.
As surprising as the concept behind Colette sounds, exclusivity has become a central tenet across a variety of new projects all around Manhattan so it seems like the best time to debut such a destination. The Ned, for example, a member's club and hotel operated by the same folks who deal with the Soho House, debuted in NoMad a few months ago, requiring an annual fee of about $5,000 (an amount that suddenly sounds cheap).
Even restaurant Carbone, already one of the hardest reservations to secure within the city's crowded culinary scene, has announced it is opening a "members only" second location in Hudson Yards by the end of this year.
As exciting as any new opening in town is as an indication of a sort of re-birth following the pandemic-fueled years we've just endured, we can't help but bemoan the New York that once was: equally inclusive of the 1% and the sorts of misfits that, let's be honest, mostly paint the character of the city we call home.