Visitors to the Springline complex in Menlo Park, California, are surrounded by a sense of comfort and luxury often found at high-end hotels: off-white walls with a Roman clay finish, a gray-and-white marble coffee table and a white leather bench beneath an 8-by-4 resin canvas etched with the words “Hello, tomorrow.” Springline’s signature scent — hints of salty sea air, white water lily, dry musk and honeydew melon — linger in the air. Springline, a “work resort” in Menlo Park, Calif.
Mary Miller, head of business development for the investment firm Norwest Venture Partners, said the office space at Springline made the hour to 90 minutes she spent commuting worth it. But Springline isn’t a hotel. It’s a “work resort,” meaning that its office space designs have taken a page from boutique hotels.
The complex is a 6.4-acre town square steps from the Menlo Park Caltrain station in San Francisco’s Bay Area. It includes two premium office buildings, nine restaurants, outdoor workspaces and terraces where people can mingle and connect, gym facilities, a high-end golf simulator, an upscale Italian grocery store and a 183-unit residential building.
And like any good resort, it has a calendar of community events from craft cocktail fairs to silent discos. With an office vacancy rate at about 20 percent in the United States, according to Cushman & Wakefield, downtown business districts are trying whatever they can to get workers back — including resortlike wor.