Downtown coworking space Common Desk at 226 N. Front St. has a waiting list for some of its smaller office options, in the one- to four-person range.

That's according to McKay Siegel, partner in development firm East West Partners, which bought and renovated the dilapidated historical structure with Monteith Construction a few years ago to create the new coworking facility.

The popularity of the Wilmington Common Desk is one reason why Siegel doesn't expect the financial woes of WeWork, the company that bought Common Desk in 2022, to impact the Port City locale. Common Desk is the management company for the coworking space, he said, while East West owns it.

A New York-based coworking and office space company, WeWork has been the subject this week of multiple news reports, including an article by The Washington Post, describing financial troubles and a board "reshuffling" that could indicate a possible bankruptcy.

The Wilmington Common Desk facility opened in January 2021 after the extensive renovation of the Gaylord Building into three floors and 23,000 square feet of flexible coworking, office and event space. East West Partners bought the building for $975,000 in 2018.

"If WeWork disappears tomorrow, we still own the building ... the furniture, the whole shebang," Siegel said. "Our location is profitable."

Efforts to reach a representative of the Common Desk Wilmington management team were not immediately successful Friday.

But Siegel said the location has done so well, "we’ve been able to shift money out of our advertising budget like radio ads and signage and stuff into the programming for the actual space. ... We’re able to have bigger and more and more fun events. You have to keep the space activated."